Jon Favreau’s reimagining of The Lion King continued to attract herds to the cinema this weekend, attaining a global cume of $1.335 billion to become the No. 12 film worldwide of all time, and the No. 2 title of the year on domestic ($473.1 million), international ($861.5 million and global charts, dropping just 40%. The film — which uses top of the line CGI and virtual production techniques to recreate a photorealistic world — is equally eligible for two major Disney Studios box office records.
The critical and audience debate about its genre is reflected in the fact that The Lion King is now either the studio’s biggest non-Marvel/Star Wars live-action movie (surpassing Beauty and the Beast at $1.263B), or its highest-grossing animated movie of all time (overtaking Frozen‘s $1.276B). Either way, moviegoers are eating it up!
The movie opened at No. 2 in Japan with $9.3M ahead of the Obon holiday. It stayed strong across Europe, holding onto No. 1 in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands while totting up a regional cume of $400M, making it the third highest grossing Disney title in Europe. In Asia-Pacific, Lion King has racked up an estimated $287M, $120M of which comes from China, where the film has been granted a screening extension. The Latin America total is $174M, with No. 1 holdovers including Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Venezuela. Lion King next opens in Italy on August 21.
Meanwhile, China’s surprise smash-hit animated feature Nezha continues to dominate the nationwide No. 1 slot, taking an estimated $68M for a $512M gross local total. Online ticketing/film discussion site Maoyan predicts the mythical adventure will wind up with $671M, which would put it ahead of Avengers: Endgame and make it the second highest-grossing movie of the year in China.
Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 4 is closing in on the billion-dollar milestone, reaching $990M worldwide as of Sunday. Buzz, Woody and Forky have made new friends in 36 markets, with a $580.4M overseas total so far. It is the No. 2 animated movie of all time in the U.K. with $73.8M, and is the No. 1 in Latin America with $196M across the region. Toy Story 4 is doing particularly well in Mexico ($71.8M), Brazil ($32.4M), Japan ($71.1M) and China ($29.1M). The sequel is now the No. 8 animated movie of all time. Next on its international rollout will be Germany this week, then on to Scandinavia.
Universal-Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 got another $15.4M box-office treat across 49 markets, bringing its overseas total to $221.2M ($377.8M worldwide). The sequel was unleashed in Mexico to $5.1M, opening higher than Zootopia; and in Spain with $2.45M. The pets continued to perform well in France ($7.3M cume), Japan ($10.8M cume), Germany ($17.9M cume) and the Netherlands ($5M cume).
