The 6 winners and losers at the 2019 summer box office

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The 6 winners and losers at the 2019 summer box office

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood 2 Sony

Andrew Cooper/Sony

"Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood."

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With all the big releases from the summer movie season out, it's time to take a look at what worked and what didn't the past few months.

At the halfway point, things weren't looking good with big blockbusters ("Godzilla: King of the Monsters," "Men in Black: International") underperforming and indies ("Late Night," "Booksmart") doing zero business. But things turned around pretty drastically thanks to releases like Disney's "The Lion King," Sony's "Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood," and Universal's "Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw."

As usual, a lot of praise goes to Disney for keeping the theatrical business on steady ground. Following the historically huge "Avengers: Endgame," which earned over $2 billion globally and became the highest-grossing movie worldwide ever, the studio went on to have four more titles ("Captain Marvel," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," "Toy Story 4") cross $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

Though the 2019 box office is down 6.4% from last year, year-to-date, according to Comscore, just imagine where it would be without the Mouse House. But Disney movies aren't the only standouts in this summer movie season.

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Here's a breakdown of the movies that impressed (and others that didn't) this summer:

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Winner: “Avengers: Endgame”

Winner: “Avengers: Endgame”

Like "Avengers: Infinity War," Disney/Marvel moved up the release date of "Endgame" to the end of April to give it some cushion from the other early summer releases, and it proved to be a huge head start for the landmark Marvel Cinematic Universe title.

The movie had a record-breaking $357.1 million domestic opening and then went on to break a whole lot more box-office records. After a rerelease, it finally topped "Avatar" to become the all-time highest grossing movie in the world with a $2.795 billion take.

Loser: “Dark Phoenix”

Loser: “Dark Phoenix”

Fox ended its time running the X-Men property (which will now go to Marvel Studios since Disney bought Fox) with a very unmemorable coda. "Dark Phoenix" has only made $66 million domestically (thank goodness for international, where the movie has at least earned over $185 million), and according to Disney CEO Bob Iger was the primary cause of Fox's $170 million operating loss last quarter.

But we have a feeling Disney will rebound nicely. It still has "Frozen 2" and "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" coming at the end of the year.

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Winner: “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum”

Winner: “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum”

The surprise success of the "John Wick" franchise continues. What at first was thought to be just a niche action movie that could grow a cult following has turned into a huge money-making franchise for Lionsgate. "Chapter 3" has earned over $320 million worldwide, blowing away the (strong) $171.5 million worldwide gross "Chapter 2" took in.

The world cannot get enough of this Keanu Reeves character.

Loser: “Men in Black: International”

Loser: “Men in Black: International”

Thanks to a couple of cofinanciers, Sony won't take the full brunt of its failed attempt to restart the "Men in Black" franchise. Though it brought in $173 million internationally, the movie only earned $79.5 million domestically and was slaughtered by critics (it received a 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

But that's a distant memory for Sony, as over the summer it had its biggest box-office earner in the company's history with "Spider-Man: Far from Home," which has taken in over $1.109 billion.

And the studio proved it can make money with a non-sequel/franchise movie with its Quentin Tarantino title.

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Winner: “Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood”

Winner: “Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood”

Quentin Tarantino's latest movie is proving to be the unicorn of today's Hollywood: an original movie that audiences want to see.

With the mix of star power (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie) and late 1960s nostalgia, the movie earned a $41 million opening, the biggest ever for Tarantino. And it is also the rare release that continues to do strong business as it moves away from its opening weekend. Having just closed its fourth weekend in theaters, the movie only had a minuscule 34% drop in business from the weekend before.

The movie has already brought in $180 million worldwide (with more international markets to come), and Sony is looking at a big profit off this one, as it was made for only around $90 million.

Loser: “Shaft”

Loser: “Shaft”

Don't feel bad, we almost forgot this movie came out, too. 19 years after Samuel L. Jackson rebooted the legendary Blaxploitation character, he returned with a sequel and, frankly, no one cared.

And the Warner Bros./New Line title disappeared from theaters pretty quickly. It started out on over 2,900 screens, but by its third week it was down to 947. And at the end of its run, it was on just 35 screens. The movie only took in $21.3 million.

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