Hobbs & Shaw -- excuse me -- Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is now the highest-grossing movie of 2019 coming out of Hollywood not produced by Disney - discounting Spider-Man: Homecoming because of its connection to the Disney owned Marvel Cinematic Universe. To date, the Universal spin-off has made $588,901,255 worldwide, which has allowed it to pull past the $519.9 million for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and $431.6 million for Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.
(In this case, I'm not including foreign films, or the two Chinese movies The Wandering Earth and Ne Zha Zhi Mo Tong Xiang Shi would still currently top Hobbs & Shaw. They both made more than $600 million in China.)
So Hobbs & Shaw is our top dog ... but still well behind Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel, Toy Story 4, and Aladdin. You know. The Disney clique. (Yes, Far From Home still counts as part of that clique.) We know Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are coming later this year, and both are expected to join the billion club. Both are also part of the Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm family.
What about other non-Disney movies?
Well, IT: Chapter 2 is coming September 6, and Warner Bros./New Line's first movie made $700 million worldwide. The sequel has been getting mixed reviews, but it has added star power in Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain, and James McAvoy. Plus, people who saw the first one -- even if it was just in the home release -- will be eager to see the sequel, no? It's possible IT: Chapter 2 will exceed the $700 million gross of the first movie and flush Hobbs & Shaw into Derry sewers.
Not that Hobbs & Shaw is done making money after reaching nearly $600 million worldwide. It made $8.1 million this weekend at the domestic box office. But Hobbs & Shaw is not making most of its money over here. "Only" $147.7 million of its total gross so far is from the domestic box office, per Box Office Mojo. A whopping $441.2 million so far is from the foreign box office -- including South Korea, which gave it a new Fast and Furious franchise record last week; and China, which just got the movie this week.
China loves loves loves Fast and Furious movies, giving the last two in the main franchise nearly $400 million alone. Hobbs & Shaw is a spinoff and not expected to make as much money as a core Fast movie, but it's still benefitting from franchise love.
I think Hobbs & Shaw will put up a fight, but I also don't think it will be able to brag long about being the top movie of 2019 that's not already part of the Disney behemoth.
Dwayne Johnson has another contender in the 2019 wings. Don't sleep on Jumanji: The Next Level. Everyone slept on Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and it held its own next to a Star Wars movie. Well, round two is ready for players.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle made an astounding $962 million in 2017. Jumanji: The Next Level added more star power in Danny DeVito and Danny Glover and it opens December 13, 2019, a week before the final Star Wars movie in the Skywalker saga. Will Sony/Columbia give 2019 its big box office winner with the next Jumanji movie? Or will the non-Disney champ be IT: Chapter 2 or someone else on the horizon?
What about Terminator: Dark Fate? James Cameron is back as producer, and both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are back on screen for the first time since they were all in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. That TriStar movie made $520.8 million worldwide back in 1991, which is A LOT more in 2019 money. So the new Terminator could make a penny or two.
This is much easier to guess if you check out our 2019 movie release schedule. Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is also on the list, but will that make more than DC's Shazam!, which tapped out at $364.4 million worldwide? Other non-Disney movies coming later this year include Rambo V: Last Blood, Doctor Sleep, Gemini Man, Zombieland: Double Tap, Abominable, Midway, Cats, The Addams Family, among others.
What non-Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm will end up making the most money in 2019? It sounds like a participation trophy when you put it like that, but Disney owns nearly everything, and people are giving their money to Disney products first and foremost. So who'll be next? Vote in our poll and/or name your non-Disney champion in the comments.
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