Disney's remake of The Lion King quickly grossed $1 billion worldwide, but how did that happen? In addition to reaping the benefits of their ever-popular subsidiaries like Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar, the Mouse House has found an in-house goldmine by producing re-imaginings of some of their most beloved animated classics. The trend began back in 2010 with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which made $1 billion globally itself. Over the past decade, several Disney remakes have hit theaters, with many of them finding tremendous success.
Given its status as one of the most beloved animated movies of all-time, The Lion King was ripe for this kind of treatment eventually. Director Jon Favreau's new take on the iconic story hit theaters last month after a long build-up of hype and anticipation, though it received mixed reviews upon its debut. Despite that, The Lion King broke box office records during its opening weekend, and it wasted no time punching its ticket into the $1 billion club. There are a couple of reasons why it was able to earn that much in a short period of time.
First and foremost, the Lion King marketing was on point from the very beginning. This wasn't an Aladdin situation where early promotional materials drew ridicule from fans before the conversation slowly turned into a more positive direction. Moviegoers were excited for The Lion King from the jump; the original teaser trailer released last fall broke Disney viewership records. From that moment, The Lion King was positioned as a must-see event, even though a majority of the people planning to watch it knew how the story went. As the advertising campaign continued, Disney tapped into the nostalgia adults have for the landmark animated classic and continued to drum up the involvement of the A-list cast bringing the well-known characters to life. Everyone knows nostalgia is a powerful tool when selling media, and that only increased the demand to see The Lion King.
The Lion King was always going to make money no matter when it released, but Disney picked an ideal release window for it. The middle of July is always a lucrative time at the multiplex, even more so this year following a down June that saw several would-be studio tentpoles fall way short of expectations. Because of that, The Lion King essentially had a monopoly on its target demographic and was able to dominate the box office. There were other high profile films that opened during this time (particularly Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), but they appealed to a very different audience and weren't direct competition. As evidenced by last week's results, there was plenty of room for Disney and Quentin Tarantino to co-exist in theaters.
Two of Disney's remakes made $1 billion this year, indicating there's still interest in seeing this initiative continue. If the studio does their best to replicate this formula, others in the pipeline should prove to be successful as well. Granted, not every title in Disney's vault is as popular as The Lion King, but smart marketing and carefully choosing an ideal release date are two hallmarks of any hit film. By now, Disney's formula is well-established.