Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million. Basinger would lose the town to her partner in the deal, the pension fund of Chicago-based Ameritech Corp., in 1993 after being forced to file for bankruptcy when a California judge ordered her to pay $7.4 million for refusing to honor a verbal contract to star in the film Boxing Helena.
June 13 – The James Bond film Licence to Kill is released. It would be followed by years of legal wrangling over the future of the popular series. The next Bond film, GoldenEye, is not released until 1995.
July 7 – Lethal Weapon 2 is released and becomes the highest-grossing film in the franchise. As well as the highest grossing R-rated film of the year at the domestic box office.
July 11 – Screen, stage, and Shakespearian legend Laurence Olivier died peacefully in his home in England, after appearing in his last filmed role as an old soldier in War Requiem.
September 28 – Sony announce its intention to buy Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures. The deal is completed in November for a total cost of nearly $5 billion. They appoint Peter Guber and Jon Peters as co-chairman, in a further deal that cost up to $1 billion, after settling a lawsuit with Warner Bros.
November 17 – The Little Mermaid becomes a critical and commercial success and brings new life to Walt Disney Feature Animation. The Little Mermaid also reinvigorated public and critical interest in The Walt Disney Company, which would become one of the most prestigious corporations of the 1990s.
International grosses (outside US & Canada): "1989 Worldwide Grosses". Box Office Mojo. June 21, 2024. Archived from the original on March 12, 2014. Overseas: $99.8 million
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