The Lion King remake may not have garnered stellar reviews — mostly because it’s a shot-for-shot recreation of the original — but the movie’s global box office gross tells us that the general masses are more than happy with the House of Mouse’s recycling strategy. After five weekends in theatres, Jon Favreau’s visually stellar The Lion King has grossed slightly over $US 1.43 billion at the global box office.
Its $US 1.43 billion gross at the global box office has helped it inch pass Black Panther ($US 1.3 billion) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($US 1.4 billion) to be the 9th highest-grossing film of all time, worldwide. Over the past couple of weeks, The Lion King (2019) has broken a bunch of records including becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time (it looks live-action, but it’s still made entirely on computers) zooming past Frozen‘s $US 1.27 billion global haul.
It’s also the highest-grossing Disney remake, a record previously held by 2017’s Beauty and the Beast ($US 1.26 billion). And the second highest-grossing film of 2019 beating Captain Marvel‘s $US 1.12 billion, losing to, of course, Avengers: Endgame ($US 2.79 billion).
Five of the top six highest-grossing films of 2019 worldwide are all from Disney. This list also includes the Aladdin remake and Toy Story 4, both grossing slightly over $US 1 billion each. The only non-Disney movie in the top 6 is Spider-Man: Far From Home ($US 1.1 billion) but even that’s tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A bulk of The Lion King‘s money has come from markets outside of North America — $US 940 million, which includes the approximately $US 116 million gross in China and $US 5.7 million (RM 24 million) gross in Malaysia. In North America, the film has made around $US 496 million, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2019 in North America as well.
The Lion King is still playing in Malaysian cinemas.
