From the moment Disney started remaking their animated classics as modern blockbusters, The Lion King was arguably the most highly-anticipated title in the entire back catalogue. After steering The Jungle Book to $966.5m at the box office, Jon Favreau’s latest photo-realistic animation looks set to perform even better as the buzz surrounding the movie continues to grow as it prepares to hit theaters in less than two weeks.
25 years later, the original Lion King is still the ninth highest-grossing animated movie in history after earning $968.5m, and would go on to win two Academy Awards and launch a stage adaptation that has generated over $8 billion in revenue. It would be an understatement to say that Favreau and his team face a monumental task in living up to the sky-high expectations surrounding their remake of one of the most successful and beloved animated movies ever made.
The continued and lasting appeal of The Lion King has now spanned generations, and kids who saw the original in theaters will now be able to give their children the same experience. The Disney brand is bigger than it has ever been and the anticipation is starting to reach fever pitch to a point where Favreau’s Lion King has become too big to fail, no matter how the reviews turn out.
It’s a guarantee that this thing will make a ton of money. The real question is: how much?
Well, Fandango reported that The Lion King became their second best pre-seller of the year behind Avengers: Endgame, a movie that obliterated box office records and opened domestically to $357.1m. Obviously nobody is expecting those kinds of numbers, but as little as a month ago analysts were predicting The Lion King could earn between $125m and $150m, which has quietly risen to nearer $200m as the release date draws closer.
About as much of a sure thing as you can get at the box office, The Lion King appeals to virtually everyone and is already at the top of many people’s ‘must see’ list. Four of the five highest-grossing movies of 2019 come from Disney, and the all-conquering studio’s latest remake is virtually guaranteed to earn over a billion dollars at this point.