Welcome to the Box Office Oracle–where new movies are pitted against each other for box office supremacy and only one can claim victory. Each week, I will be doing a quick box office prediction for all wide new releases. Sorry, obscure indie films I’ve never heard of, but you aren’t going to be discussed here unless you become big.
This is also something I’m going to keep as free of “controversy” if I can. This means that if, I don’t know, Jon Voight is voicing an evil government agent talking bear in a DreamWorks movie, I’m not going to make a bunch of Trump jokes. If a Tom Cruise actioner comes out, I’m not going to make a bunch of Scientology cracks. You get the idea. I want for this to be kept fun and simple.
So, without any further discussion, let’s go into this weekend’s solo big release, The Lion King.
The Lion King
So you’ve probably heard about this one. And you don’t need for me to tell you that it’s going to make a king’s ransom worth of money. The only question, as it was with Toy Story 4 last month, is how much dough we’re looking at here.
It’s tempting to go ahead and make a bold prediction of $200 million or more, which certainly wouldn’t be impossible. The Lion King is among the most popular animated movies of all time, and was an absolute pop culture phenomenon when it opened in 1994. The nostalgia for the original alone combined with some “holy shit, this looks amazing” trailers definitely guarantee an opening of at least $100 million, but I don’t want to go overboard here as some did (myself included, to an extent) with Toy Story 4, which resulted in the press unfairly labeling it as a disappointment (it’s made $357 million so far, guys. It’s going to be just fine).
If we look at Disney’s past remakes for comparisons, the best two we’ve got are Beauty and the Beast ($174 million debut, $504 million finish) and The Jungle Book ($104 million debut, $364 million total), but both of those movies opened in spring when school was still in session, meaning its weekends were more loaded. And since everyone knows what to expect here, there’s not going to be “must see it as soon as possible to avoid spoilers” vibe driving this one forward, and I expect for The Lion King–like this summer’s Aladdin remake–to be a strong weekday performer as well. Even with all of that being said, the hype is still very real here (and no, those reviews “complaining” about the film being too similar to the original aren’t going to hurt it, as a nostalgic experience is exactly what the fans want from this), so an opening weekend of $160 million sounds about right, though it could go a lot higher than that.
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Go: Holy fuck, those visuals! They were enough to have me crying during the film’s teaser trailer. The Lion King is also an entire generation’s favorite childhood movie. That’s going to get many butts in movie seats this weekend!
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Stay Away: Buzz claims that the killer soundtrack from the original is somewhat underused here (particularly “Hakuna Matata”), and maybe some of us simply aren’t ready to have to watch Mufasa die again.
Today’s Lucky Lotto Numbers: $160 million debut; $510 million finish.
* Other fun stuff…
* I saw the original Lion King opening day way back in 1994. I was quite surprised when Mufasa died, and I think it upset me a lot more than I ever told my parents. Though I saw it again (I think my total number of theatrical viewings for the film was three) in theaters that summer, I avoided the holiday season re-release for that reason.
* Timon doing the hula was one of my favorite movie scenes ever as a kid. My late father also liked Timon and Pumbaa, and I’m pretty sure they were his favorite characters (especially Pumbaa).
* Speaking of Pumbaa, The Lion King is the first Disney animated film to include flatulence humor.
* The Lion King is so fucking big that it made $94 million during its 2011 3-D re-release. Naturally, Disney got cocky and announced several more in response, but they went overboard. When Monsters, Inc. failed to bring people into theaters during its re-release, a 3-D re-issue of The Little Mermaid was cancelled.
* Amazingly, The Lion King wasn’t the biggest movie of 1994; Forrest Gump was. Similarly, Frozen wasn’t the biggest movie of 2013, as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire holds that title.
* The Lion King is the best-selling home video release of all time. What’s the best-selling Blu-ray of all time? That would, yes, be Disney’s Frozen.
* The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride was also insanely big, scoring the second best home video sales of 1998, behind only Titanic. The Lion King 1 and a Half was likewise a record-breaking hit, selling six million copies on DVD, the most ever for a straight-to-video film on the then-new home viewing format (it would help contribute to Disney abandoning VHS the following year).
* As you have probably guessed, I’m a Lion King nut. Long live the king!