‘The Lion King’ Feels The $1B Global Box Office Love Today; Disney’s Fourth Title Past Milestone This Year
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Bringing Disney’s running total of $1 billion-plus global grossers to four this year, the studio’s The Lion King will put its paw across the coveted threshold today. Getting there in 19 days, the Jon Favreau-directed CGI/live-action remake of the animated classic is at $999.4 million worldwide through Monday, with $360.9M domestically and $638.5M from the international box office.
Along with Aladdin, The Lion King is the second release from Disney Live Action to reach the $1B milestone this year and the sixth ever to do so. Other billion-dollar pics from the studio in 2019 are Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel. Toy Story 4, currently at $919.1M, is the next title to cross $1 billion for the year, getting them to five. And then there’s Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which would make a potential seven mindboggling $1 billion-plus grossing films, unprecedented for any major studio, and a bar that many rivals in town don’t expect to ever surpass.
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Disney could do half the business that they’re doing this year and still beat their nearest rival studio at the box office, Warner Bros. This is the new world order for many years to come (and arguably has been looking back): Disney is in charge.
The Lion King opened on July 19 domestically, ripping up the record books with a $191.8M start and has continued to be No. 1 at the daily box office.
Before he hit North America, Simba padded into China early with a $55M debut. On its second overseas weekend, TLK added $275.2M in 52 markets, 51 of which were new and with each giving the movie pride of place atop their respective box office charts.
This past frame, TLK helped push Disney to all-time records both worldwide ($7.67B) and overseas ($5.09B) for a studio in a calendar year. It’s only the end of July, and Disney still has on deck Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker before the end of the year.
The movie is the second highest release of 2019 in EMEA and is the highest-grossing release from Disney Live Action in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Central America, Trinidad, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Hong Kong, Italy and Japan have yet to release Lion King. Through Monday, the Top 5 markets are China ($115.8M), UK ($48M), Brazil ($44.2M), France ($42.2M) and Mexico ($38.4M).
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