‘Lion King’ Roars to Record-Breaking $185M Opening Weekend
Featuring a star-studded cast led by Donald Glover and Beyoncé, Jon Favreau’s live-action remake of the 1994 classic dominated the box office over the weekend – earning the title for best domestic launch ever for a PG-rated film.
Disney is king of the box office once again. This past weekend, the reimagined “The Lion King” hit theaters with a record-breaking $185 million North American total – the biggest domestic launch ever for a PG film. With a global total of over $531 million, the movie also landed the ninth biggest opening for any film and beat out the final “Harry Potter” movie to take the top spot for a July title.
Featuring groundbreaking, photorealistic CGI and a star-studded voice cast led by Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé as Nala, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, Billy Eichner as Timon, John Oliver as Zazu and James Earl Jones reprising his role as Mufasa, the film earned an “A” CinemaScore from audiences and glowing exit scores from ticket buyers.
“What consistently dazzles are the effects, from the smallest twitch of an ear to the awesome sight of stampeding wildebeest.” Newsday
The film was also a big win for director Jon Favreau – delivering a career-best opening for the director. Favreau was also the man behind 2016’s “The Jungle Book.” In fact, it was while making “The Jungle Book” that he had the idea to remake “The Lion King.” “I knew that with the tools that we had and what the technology had to offer and the team that had done such a great job on ‘Jungle Book’ that there was an opportunity here to show the naturalism of that world,” Favreau shared during an interview for “The Big Ticket” podcast. “I understood how to make animals act and talk through animation. I understood how to direct animation too because there were some sequences in ‘Jungle Book’ that didn’t have Mowgli in them. Those scenes were completely CG. I was comfortable directing the animators.”
In addition to “The Jungle Book,” other Disney remakes include 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland,” 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast,” as well as “Dumbo” and “Aladdin” earlier this year. But Disney’s success stretches farther than remakes. This weekend also resulted in Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame” reaching $2.79 billion to become the top-grossing film of all time at the global box office – beating the previously held record of $2.789 billion by 2009’s “Avatar.”
“The Lion King” is in theaters now and available for licensing from Swank this fall. All other Disney films mentioned are available from Swank now or will be soon.