The Lion King Smashes Past $500 Million Worldwide Thanks to Massive Weekend

It made $9.4 million in India on opening weekend.

By Akhil Arora | Updated: 23 July 2019 11:31 IST

The Lion King Smashes Past $500 Million Worldwide Thanks to Massive Weekend

Photo Credit: Disney

A young Simba in The Lion King remake

Highlights

The Lion King released July 19 in cinemas in India
It had the ninth largest opening of all time, in one way
Spider-Man: Far From Home, Aladdin edge to $1 billion

The Lion King has smashed through the $500-million milestone in 10 days of release, as it added $460.8 million (about Rs. 3,179 crores) at the worldwide box office over the past weekend. If you take out the Disney film's earnings in China, where it opened last week, The Lion King remake ($440 million) had the ninth largest global opening of all time, sandwiched between Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($450.8 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($422.5 million). That also makes it the best opening weekend of all time for a computer-animated movie. Unfortunately, box office numbers aren't usually calculated this way.

The Lion King Review: A Visual Upgrade, Devoid of the Disney Magic

Sparing the technicalities, of the $460.8 million grossed by The Lion King this weekend, $191.8 million (about Rs. 1,323 crores) came from its home market of the US, while the rest $269 million (about Rs. 1,856 crores) was contributed by all international markets. The biggest of them was China ($20.8 million), followed by the UK ($19.9 million), France ($19.6 million), Mexico ($18.7 million), Brazil ($17.9 million), South Korea ($17.7 million), Australia ($17.1 million), Russia ($16.7 million), Germany ($12.3 million), India ($9.4 million), Spain ($8.4 million), and Netherlands ($6 million). The Lion King has yet to release in Hong Kong (July 25), Japan (August 9), and Italy (August 21).

In India, The Lion King remake improved day-on-day after release. It grossed Rs. 13.17 crores (about $1.9 million) on Friday, Rs. 22.8 crores (about $3.3 million) on Saturday, and Rs. 29.22 crores (about $4.2 million) on Sunday, for a weekend total of Rs. 65.19 crores ($9.4 million). Per Disney India, that's the studio's third highest opening weekend of all time in the country after Avengers: Endgame ($26.7 million), and Avengers: Infinity War ($18.19 million).

Elsewhere, Spider-Man: Far From Home was the global runner-up to The Lion King this weekend with $58.2 million (about Rs. 401.58 crores). The Sony Pictures, Marvel Studios co-production has now grossed $970.9 million (about Rs. 6,700 crores) globally and should cross the $1-billion milestone by next weekend.

Speaking of the $1-billion milestone, Disney's previous remake of an animated property — Aladdin — is also nearing that figure, with a current worldwide box office total of $989.1 million (about Rs. 6,824 crores).

In third place this weekend was Disney-Pixar's Toy Story 4, which brought in an additional $40.4 million (about Rs. 278.76 crores) to take its global total to $861.2 million (about Rs. 5,942 crores). That makes Toy Story 4 the fifth biggest Pixar movie of all time, behind Incredibles 2 ($1.242 billion), Toy Story 3 ($1.067 billion), Finding Dory ($1.028 billion), and Finding Nemo ($899.2 million).

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Further reading: The Lion King, Disney, Disney India, Spider Man, Spider Man Far From Home, Sony Pictures, Marvel, MCU, Aladdin, Toy Story, Toy Story 4