‘Lion King’ is B.O. king, ‘Avengers’ tops ‘Avatar’

Even decidedly mixed reviews (54% on Rotten Tomatoes) couldn’t keep the King down.

Walt Disney Studios’ live-action adaptation of the The Lion King roared its way to the top of the Weekend Box Office heap with an astounding $185 million opening weekend.

This sets a new record for biggest July opening ever, biting previous record-holder Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($169.2M in 2011). The film now also holds the record for biggest opening weekend ever for a Disney live-action remake.

Worldwide, the Jon Favreau-directed feature earned another $269.4 million and has now topped $531 million ($185M domestic; $346M foreign) globally, which puts it on course for a likely billion-dollar finish.

If it passes that number, Lion King will be the third – possibly fourth – Disney title to cross $1 billion this year, joining Marvel’s Captain Marvel, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame – and maybe Aladdin.

Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home finished second with $21 million in its third frame, taking its domestic total to $319.6 million.

Worldwide, the critically-acclaimed Jon Watts-directed sequel has now earned over $970.7 million ($319.6M domestic; $651.1M foreign) and is inching closer and closer to becoming the first Spidey film to become a billionaire.
Toy Story 4, Crawl and Yesterday rounded out the top five. Below are the domestic and worldwide charts for this weekend:

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Avengers: Endgame topples Avatar

Thanos is not the only one Iron Man and company defeated. Avengers: Endgame is now the all-time box office champion, having surged past James Cameron’s Avatar.

The capper to what is now dubbed, The Infinity Saga has made approximately $2,790,216,193 billion. 20th Century Fox’s (now Disney) Avatar has grossed ($2.789B).

As the celebration gets underway, Avatar director/writer/producer James Cameron has shared an amazing piece of artwork, congratulating Marvel Studios for doing what seemed so impossible for nearly a decade and finally becoming the new box office king. His tweet reads:

Chew on this – Disney films in the top ten are as follows: Avengers: Endgame (1), Avatar (2), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (4), Avengers: Infinity War (5), The Avengers (7), Avengers: Age of Ultron (9) and Black Panther (10).

Wow, just wow.

Source: comScore