The Lion King poised to be box office king with projected $180-230M opening

May 28th 2019, 9:28am

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Disney just won the weekend once again with their release of the remake of ALADDIN, which had a big debut over the four-day Memorial Day weekend with over $100 million. Although we’re about two months out from their next big remake, THE LION KING, there’s no reason to doubt it will also give Disney another big win, and already projections are poising it to have one of the biggest opening weekends ever.

With plenty of time left to go and lots of room for the stats to change, the current tracking for the remake from Jon Favreau pegs its opening weekend at about $180 million to $230 million (via Box Office Pro). To put that staggering number into perspective, opening at the lowest of those projections, or even less than, would still place it above the opening of Disney’s biggest remake, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ($174 million) and even in the top 10 openings ever above CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR ($179 million) and INCREDIBLES 2 ($182 million). Of course, should it hit the higher end of things it would be cracking the top 5, pouncing over the likes of Marvel hits BLACK PANTHER and THE AVENGERS ($201 million, $207 million) and STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI ($220 million) – all movies that went on to make over $600 million domestically.

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While this number is much larger than the turnout for past remakes like DUMBO, JUNGLE BOOK and this weekend’s ALADDIN, the original LION KING’s popularity is a bit stronger than those original animated movies. At over $400 million domestic (between re-releases), THE LION KING is the highest-grossing non-digital animated movie ever, and a 3D re-release some years ago proved love for the movie is as strong as ever by pulling in $94 million. Despite the usual grumblings on Film Twitter, reactions to the trailer have been mostly strong, and the first teaser back in November 2018 broke the Disney record for their largest trailer debuts ever (non-Marvel) with 224 million views in 24 hours.

So, yeah, pending disastrous reviews there’s no reason not to think THE LION KING will be the king of the box office come its release in July. In terms of blockbusters, the month is basically dedicated to Disney, with SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING coming out on July 3, with THE LION KING being the only other big movie that month on July 19 – unless you also count ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD one week later. While the majority of the Disney movies of the late 80s and 90s have their legion of fans, THE LION KING has always been its *ahem* own beast, so it makes sense that it could open to such huge numbers. Plus, cute baby lions and other animals, so that alone is enough to start printing money.

THE LION KING is in theaters July 19.