This weekend, The Lion King roared.
Disney’s photorealistic CG-animated remake of the traditionally-animated 1994 blockbuster brought in a smashing $185 million in its opening weekend, which ranks as the ninth-highest debut of all time, the second-highest debut of 2019 (after Avengers: Endgame), the biggest July opening ever (besting the $169.1 million of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in 2011), the biggest PG-rated opening ever, the biggest Disney opening of all time outside Marvel and Lucasfilm (surpassing Incredibles 2‘s $182.7 million), and the largest-ever debut for a remake of one of Disney’s animated films, besting the $174.7 million record held by 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. Internationally, The Lion King grossed an additional estimated $269 million, bringing the worldwide haul for the film to an astounding $531 million in its first ten days (including $77 million earned overseas, mainly in China, prior to its North American debut).
To reach its incredible total, The Lion King overcame mixed reviews (it currently stands at ?% on Rotten Tomatoes) thanks to a potent mix of nostalgic goodwill from adult fans, a no-holds-barred marketing campaign and what appears to be strong word-of-mouth from moviegoers (at least if its “A” Cinemascore and 89% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes are any indication). Not to be forgotten is the fact that it opened in 4,725 locations, which stands as the widest debut of all time in North America. That’s over 200 more screens than Aladdin debuted on back in May and over 500 more than Beauty and the Beast when it hit theaters in March 2017.
This weekend’s result breathed new life into the summer box office following a number of notable underperformers over the last couple of months, including The Secret Life of Pets 2, Men in Black: International, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Dark Phoenix, which set some in the industry on edge. Indeed, The Lion King alone outgrossed the entire Top 10 from the same frame a year ago, when The Equalizer 2 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again debuted to $36 million and $34.9 million respectively.
With The Lion King’s overwhelming dominance there was little room for other new releases this weekend, which is probably why none of the other studios put titles into wide circulation. After finishing in the top spot two weekends in a row, Spider-Man: Far From Home dropped to second with an estimated $21 million, dropping roughly 53% from the previous frame and bringing its domestic cume to $319.6 million to date. The tally for the MCU sequel is now less than $15 million behind the lifetime gross of Spider-Man: Homecoming, which finished its North American run with $334.2 million in 2017.
In third place, Toy Story 4 remained sturdy in the face of The Lion King with an estimated $14.6 million this weekend, bringing its North American total to $375.5 million to date. That pace is roughly 3% ahead of Toy Story 3, which currently stands as the highest-grossing entry in the Pixar series with a final tally of $415 million in North America.
In fourth, the alligator thriller Crawl dropped 50% to an estimated $6 million in its second weekend, bringing the total for the Paramount release to $23.8 million after ten days. That’s actually not a bad sophomore performance for the $13.5 million production, which benefitted from largely positive reviews (its Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 84%).
Fifth place went to the leggy sleeper Yesterday, which eased just 24% to an estimated $5.1 million in its fourth weekend of release. The total for the Universal musical rom-com now stands at a very good $57.6 million.
More to come…
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: <em>The Lion King</em> Takes Box Office Throne w/ Massive $185M in North America, $433M Global appeared first on Boxoffice.
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