Gautam Anand
‘The Lion King’ is now the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. The Jon Favreau-directed movie, which has made over $1.33 billion worldwide till now, surpassed ‘Frozen‘, which made a total of $1.28 billion globally at the end of its run. The Beyonce and Donald Glover-starring film has been a tentpole for the Walt Disney Studios. As previously reported, ‘The Lion King’ has also had yet another solid weekend at the box office.
It is important to clarify here that despite being called a live-action remake, ‘The Lion King’ is very much an animated movie since the characters are computer-generated. Although the movie has been a massive earner for Disney, it still remains the second highest grosser of 2019. ‘The Lion King’ is nowhere close to toppling the records set by ‘Avengers: Endgame‘, which went on to earn $2.79 billion and unseated ‘Avatar‘ as the highest-grossing movie of all time. However, since Marvel Studios is also owned by Disney, the House of Mouse has been the ultimate winner.
Disney movies have already made more than $7.67 billion globally this year. When compared to last year’s total that Disney raked in, which amounted to $7.61 billion, it is evident that the studio is having a great 2019, with movies like ‘Frozen 2‘ and ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘ still in the pipelines this year. In fact, estimates suggest that if these two massive films earn as much as their predecessors did, Disney could be looking at an additional $2 billion this year.
It was previously announced that Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, who has taken the movie studio to new heights, will step down once his contract expires in 2021. He said, “I’ve been engaged with the board for quite some time in some discussion about a succession, and they’ve been engaged in a succession process, and we continue to feel that they will be able to identify my successor on a timely enough basis so that this company has a smooth transition. I do want to say, by the way, since a lot has been said internally — and I think, probably, maybe felt now that we’ve shown this all to you — that what we’re putting forward is an aggressive strategy, and that’s very purposeful. Because we feel, obviously, that strategy is extremely important to us and we feel that if we’re going to implement it, we’ve got to be very, very serious and be all in on it. And that’s because we believe that that is the best way for this to succeed.”
