'The Lion King' Breaks Records with Huge Opening Weekend
by EG
Thanks to Avengers: Endagame, Disney now owns the highest-grossing movie of all time, and thanks to their remake of The Lion King, the studio has raked in a few more records this week, including the biggest July movie opening and the biggest opening for a PG-rated movie. Read on for details.
Hear Simba roar.
Furthering Disney's domination, Jon Favreau's The Lion King opened to a record-breaking $185 million at the North American box office over the weekend for an early global total of $531 million.
The movie scored the biggest domestic launch ever for a PG film, and the ninth-biggest for any movie, not to mention notching a record for a Disney release outside of Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, not adjusted for inflation. It also bested the final Harry Potter pic ($169.2 million) to land the top start for a July title.
Overseas, The Lion King earned a mighty $269.4 million over the weekend from 52 markets. It came in No. 1 everywhere and made a particularly strong showing in Russia, Australia and the entire Latin America region. The overall foreign total of $346 million includes $97.5 million from China, where it debuted early last weekend.
Employing groundbreaking photorealistic CG and featuring a star-studded voice cast, The Lion King is another win for Disney's aggressive campaign to reimagine its animated classics and a career-best start for Favreau, who also directed Disney's Jungle Book remake.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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