Box Office: 'Avengers: Endgame' Has Now Sold More Tickets In America Than 'The Lion King' - Forbes

'Avengers: Endgame'

Walt Disney

As expected, Walt Disney was sneaky with their Aladdin estimates. Everyone and their sister were guestimating an over/under $113 million Fri-Mon total, but Disney came in with “just” $105 million. And sure enough, the final figures are out (including Monday estimates), and it’s indeed a $90 million Fri-Sun weekend and a $112.7 million Fri-Mon estimate. And they were a little low on Avengers: Endgame as well, with a $22.3 million Fri-Mon estimate for a new 32-day domestic total of $803.631 million. It also means that Avengers 4 has sold more tickets in North America, give or take 3-D bumps and IMAX/PLF upcharges, than Walt Disney’s The Lion King.

For reference, The Lion King opened in wide release (after two weeks in just two theaters) on June 24, 1994. The much-anticipated and well-reviewed animated adventure, sold as “Hamlet meets Bambi in Africa,” opened with a boffo $42 million debut weekend. At the time, that was the nth biggest opening weekend ever, behind Jurassic Park ($50 million in 1993), Batman Returns ($47 million in 1992) and Batman ($43 million in 1989). It legged out all summer for a final $312 million domestic total.

At the time, that made it the fifth biggest domestic grosser of all time, behind E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial ($359 million before the 2002 reissue), Jurassic Park ($357 million before the 2013 reissue), Forrest Gump ($330 million over that same summer) and Star Wars ($322 million, before the Special Edition release in 1997). And in terms of adjusted-for-inflation ticket sales, The Lion King’s initial theatrical release earned $672.4 million in North America, a figure that Avengers: Endgame passed on its 15th day of release.

However, The Lion King has been reissued a few times over the last 25 years, specifically a 2011 3-D rerelease that netted an additional $94 million in North America. All in, The Lion King has earned $422 million domestic and $968 million worldwide. In terms of domestic inflation, that added up to around $803.3 million in adjusted-for-inflation domestic earnings. Avengers: Endgame just passed that, putting it in 19th place between The Sting ($803 million adjusted) and Star Wars – Episode One: The Phantom Menace ($813 million, counting its own 2012 3-D reissue).

All of this is mere trivia as we see how high on the inflation-adjusted list Avengers 4 gets by the end of its run (presumably 16th place between Return of the Jedi and Avatar). The live-action remake of Aladdin just opened with $113 million in four days (and a global opening potentially as high as $265 million) partially based on the diversity of its onscreen cast. So, I’m curious to see how Jon Favreau’s Lion King plays with a mostly black cast (Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, James Earl Jones, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, etc.) in the main vocal roles.

Current early guestimates argue that it’ll open with an over/under $200 million launch, but reviews could push that figure up or down. As for repeat business and overall global grosses, much will depend on how different the new movie is from the 1994 flick. Favreau has promised that it won’t be a shot-for-shot remake akin to (my words, not his) Gus Van Sant’s Psycho, so that’s encouraging. Of note, The Lion King only sold (in 2019 ticket prices) $672 million back in 1994 when movies that popular played for months-upon-months and had little in the way of comparatively scaled competition.

I do have a history (partially due to witnessing movies like Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Pearl Harbor and Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows getting taken down by unreasonable expectations) of offering dialed-down expectations or worst-case-scenarios only to watch a given biggie earn best-case-scenario box office. So, yes, The Lion King could end up with over/under Jurassic World numbers worldwide. But let’s not panic if the movie only earns Beauty and the Beast money ($504 million domestic and $1.263 billion worldwide) or even The Jungle Book money ($366 million/$966 million). Unless Frozen II performs at best-case-scenario this Thanksgiving, I imagine the battle for second place is going to come down to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and The Lion King.

Place your bets…

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May 27, 2019 at 10:26PM