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Refresh for latest…: With a mighty roar, Disney’s The Lion King was the No. 1 movie in all of its opening markets this weekend, adding $269.4M at the international box office. The adaptation of the classic animation debuted in 51 new hubs, which joined China after its early bow last week. Through 10 days, the Jon Favreau-helmed film has grossed $346M overseas for $531M worldwide when including domestic.
The global launch tally this frame (ie, outside China) was $433M, the 9th biggest of all time. Factoring in China’s $98M so far, The Lion King is already the No. 7 movie of the year worldwide.
Looking at international debuts, Simba and pals were tops everywhere and landed within the Top 5 industry opening weekends ever in several hubs, including Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and the entire Latin America region. The launch is above The Jungle Book and Aladdin in all material markets, and above Beauty And The Beast in nearly all.
Speaking of Aladdin, the magic carpet juggernaut is zooming to the $1B worldwide mark having now grossed $989M after a 40% offshore drop this session. In Korea, the Will Smith-starrer has passed Avengers: Age Of Ultron to become the No. 4 western release ever, behind Avatar, Endgame and Infinity War.
Turning back to Lion King, any concerns about lukewarm critical scores started flying out the window as Simba got going mid-week last week. Pre-weekend industry projections for the new hubs — ie excluding the China holdover — were dusted and we quickly saw that the international total would be above $300M through today.
Still to come are Japan, Hong Kong and Italy and it looks safe to project at least a $900M+ finish on Lion King overseas. There is clear play ahead — although not in China where a local animated film has folks buzzing — and reactions from offshore have been strong with good social chatter and momentum ahead.
Overall, Disney had a banner weekend with Avengers: Endgame passing Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide. The cume through Sunday on Endgame is $1.936B internationally and $2,790.2M global, still with some offshore markets to rerelease.
In related Avengers news, Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home sprang to another $37.2M in 67 markets, lifting the offshore cume to $651.1M (now including over $200M from China) and swinging global to $970.7M on its way to $1B.
In non-Disney, non-superhero news, Illumination/Universal’s The Secret Life Of Pets 2 barked across the $300M worldwide threshold while Uni’s Yesterday is approaching $100M. New Line/Warner Bros’ Annabelle Comes Home is now just shy of $200M.
Breakdowns on the titles above and more are being updated below.
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