'The Lion King' Pounces To The Top Of The Box Office With A Massive $185 Million Opening

Disney had no problem topping the charts again this summer with their release of the remake of The Lion King. Audiences may not be sure whether to call this movie animation or live-action, but they clearly had to see it for themselves to the tune of a $185 million opening weekend at the domestic box office. That's enough to give the movie the #9 spot on the chart of the best opening weekends of all-time. 

On top of having the ninth largest opening weekend of all-time, The Lion King landed several box office records:

Overseas, The Lion King has been doing huge business too. The international box office now stands at $346 million, making for a global total of $531 million. On top of that, The Lion King had big debuts in international markets, including landing in the top five box office openings of all-time in Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and the entire Latin America region.

Of course, there have been inevitable headlines proclaiming that mixed reviews from critics couldn't keep audiences away from the movie. But that was to be expected with a remake of a movie as popular as The Lion King. The stunning imagery from the photorealistc visual effects was enough to wow audiences and convince them to buy a ticket. Plus, the "A" CinemaScore from audiences shows they're more satisfied than the critical reviews that resulted in the movie getting a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Disney also had a partial hand in taking the #2 spot at the box office since Spider-Man: Far From Home dropped down to second place with another $21 million added to its domestic total, which now stands just under $320 million. That's just after threek weeks of release.

In case there was any doubt of Disney being the ultimate box office champions, Pixar's Toy Story 4 held on well enough to land the #3 spot with another $14.6 million. That brings the US box office for the animated sequel to $375 million, and it's likely to cross $400 million before all is said and done. Worldwide, the movie is just under $860 million.

Meanwhile, Paramount's thriller Crawl dropped down to the #4 spot with only $6 million over the weekend. That gives it a total of $24 million after its second weekend of release, which isn't necessarily a huge number, but for an original thriller without any huge names, that's not a bad haul.

Finally, Yesterday finished the top five with $5 million. That's only a drop of 24%, bringing the total number to $57.5 in the United States. The movie has held on strong since being released at the end of June, holding off the more recent release of Stuber, which landed in the sixth spot on the charts.

You can check out the rest of the box office details over at Box Office Mojo.