Box Office: Tarantino Snags His Biggest Opening Ever with ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’

Director Quentin Tarantino earned his biggest box office opening ever with the debut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But Disney’s Lion King still ruled the box office for the last weekend of July.

Tarantino’s ninth film, an ode to old-time Hollywood, slashed in at second place in the box office race with a $40 million opening on Friday. The R-rated buddy pic with the shock ending also gave the director his biggest first-day earning ever after bringing in $16.8 million on Friday, according to Variety.

The earning was a surprise to the studio which only predicted a $30 million opening for the Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt vehicle. Despite the low expectations, though, Once Upon a Time topped Tarantino’s last Brad Pitt starrer, Inglorious Basterds, which had a $38 million opening in 2009.

Still, Tarantino’s film ranked second this weekend with Disney’s Lion King still roaring in at first place.

Lion King earned another $75.5 million over the weekend bringing its total cume to $612 million in the U.S. However, the audience attendance dropped 60 percent over last weekend.

Sony’s Spider-Man: Far from Home swung into third place with an estimated $12.2 million take, Box Office Mojo reported. The latest entry in the Spider-Man series has also joined the growing list of billion-dollar films with a total thus far of $1.03 billion at home and overseas.

In fourth place, Disney’s Toy Story 4 brought in another $10 million in its sixth weekend in theaters, bringing its total domestic earnings to $395 million. The animated flick also lost only 36.5 percent of its audience over last weekend, a drop that is far less than that of Lion King.

Finally, rounding out the top five biggest films of the weekend, Paramount’s horror flick Crawl collected another $4 million. Its domestic earnings slithered in at just over $31 million to date.

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