Disney’s remake of The Lion King has paid off. The film is now the studio’s highest-rated animated movie ever—insofar as one considers it to be an “animated” movie. Released on July 19, the remake has already grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, notching its latest record over the weekend after scooping up an additional $20 million.
The Lion King has defied easy genre categorization. It’s not live-action, nor is it strictly considered animation, per director Jon Favreau: “It’s neither, really,” he told SlashFilm in May. “It depends what standard you’re using. Because there’s no real animals and there’s no real cameras and there’s not even any performance that’s being captured that’s underlying data that’s real. Everything is coming through the hands of artists.”
While the film may not fit perfectly into the definition of either genre, it is highly lucrative—one of Disney’s biggest hits in a year when the studio has seen multiple films hit the billion-dollar mark. Its $1.3 billion cumulative take places the film ahead of previous animated record-holder Frozen, which earned $1.276 billion. Perhaps the upcoming ice-princess sequel will bump The Lion King from the throne once it hits theaters this November.
Either way, this is good news for the studio, which recently posted a $170 million operating loss in its third fiscal quarter. The loss is attributed to acquired Fox films that underperformed at the box office, namely Dark Phoenix—the X-Men sequel that disappointed critics and underwhelmed fans. The film, released in June, has made $252 million worldwide, against a reported $200 million budget.
The Lion King was one of the studio’s safer bets this year. The blockbuster, basically a beat-for-beat retread of the original 1994 film, stars Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé as Nala, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, and Billy Eichner as Timon. While it’s technologically impressive, the movie has also been criticized for its lack of emotional depth and for losing out on the quirky benefits of hand-drawn animation. Still, audiences haven’t seemed to mind, flocking to screenings of the film all over the world.
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