Hobbs & Shaw wins this weekend's box office race.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Universal film pulled in a total of $60 million for its opening weekend. Although this was on the lower end of prediction which had the movie grossing between $60-65 million, it was enough to push it past Disney's The Lion King and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was also the biggest debut of stars Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson's careers (aside from the main Fast & Furious films). Hobbs & Shaw's massive weekend is this summer's highest-grossing debut for a movie that's not a Disney or superhero film.
In addition to its domestic success, Hobbs & Shaw is making a splash in foreign markets. Living off the brand of its parent series, Hobbs & Shaw is receiving the same love overseas as the Fast & Furious films. The movie doubled the $60 million it earned in North America in the foreign markets. That $120 million brings the film's global debut to $180 million and it still has to premiere in South Korea and China later this month.
Despite its profitable weekend, Hobbs & Shaw's opening doesn't hold a candle to the numbers the original Fast & Furious films generated. While the franchise debuted in 2001 with $40 million in North America and $207.3 million total gross, the series has gone on to become one of the biggest franchises in the world. In fact, the latest Fast & Furious movie, The Fate of the Furious, opened to a record-breaking $532 million worldwide debut with $98.8 million coming from the U.S. But, Hobbs & Shaw wasn't expected to shatter the backboard like the Fast films. It was hopeful that the film would pull the domestic box office out of the slump its been experiencing this summer and the movie served its purpose.
