In what turned out to be one of the bigger box-office surprises this year, Disney’s 3D re-release of their successful classic The Lion King topped the box-office despite being the new release with the smallest theatre count. The animated feature took in a whopping $29.3 million from 2,330 theatres for a terrific per-theatre-average of $12,575. This opening is truly remarkable in various respects. It is the 2nd-biggest opening weekend ever for a movie’s reissue with the top spot still being held by Star Wars: Special Edition which made $35.9 million in its opening back in January 1997. No movie since then could come even close to that number – until The Lion King. Back in 2009, in anticipation of Toy Story 3 Disney has re-released Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D as a double feature. The combo opened to $12.5 million from 600 theatres less and went on to gross $30.7 million. That re-release was of course hindered by its long combined running time allowing for fewer showtimes. The last major tradition non-CGI animated re-release was The Little Mermaid back in 1997, but that also went to open to $9.8 million and finished with $27.2 million. Except Star Wars nothing has set the precedent for such a gigantic opening. It definitely helps that The Lion King is an all-time classic and immensely beloved by children and adults alike. However, just being a beloved classic apparently doesn’t cut it. When E. T. was re-released as a 20th Anniversary Special Edition back in 2002, it opened to just over $14 million despite having been given a big marketing push and over 3,000 theatres. Another remarkable aspect of this opening is that it became the largest opening weekend for a movie since Rise of the Planet of the Apes at the beginning of August and the first movie to top the box-office while playing in less than 2,500 theatres since I Can Do Bad All By Myself in September 2009. The cumulated gross for The Lion King (including its original run in 1994) stands at $357.8 million. After this weekend it has jumped five spots on the all-time domestic chart, now at #17 just ahead of Jurassic Park. It looks very likely that it will eventually become the 12th $400+ million grosser and re-enter the all-time Top 10.

So why did The Lion King surpass even the most outrageous predictions and opened to such terrific numbers? And where is it heading from now on?

To answer the first question: there are two main reasons why The Lion King broke out. First would be that, as I said above, it’s an all-around beloved classic. Let’s not forget that until Finding Nemo came along in 2003, it has held the title as the highest-grossing animated film of all-time for nine years and nothing else even came close. The film is a major classic and two DTV sequels kept the franchise going on home video. Also, in the times of VHS is became the most-sold movie ever with sales numbers that no movie on DVD could ever top to date (over 30 million tapes have been sold, 4.5 million of those on the first day of release alone). Furthermore, Julie Taymor’s The Lion King musical became a huge success on Broadway and worldwide. However, as I have mentioned above, E.T.’s re-release has shown that popularity of the film alone doesn’t guarantee a hugely successful re-release. A more important reason, in my opinion, is the utter lack of family-oriented competition. The marketplace hasn’t seen a single family-oriented release since Spy Kids: All the Time in the World which opened four weeks ago and bombed, looking to finish under $40 million. The only other family release in August was The Smurfs which is now in its 8th week. No family-oriented movie has made more than $1.6 million this weekend. In other words: The Lion King was the perfect re-release under the perfect circumstances and the 3D boost certainly helped the grosses as well.

As far as the future prospects go, I don’t see the terrific legs that are usually reserved for well-received family-oriented movies released in September. If you look at major re-releases only very few of them ended up with good or even solid legs. Last year, the Toy Story combo didn’t even manage a multiplier of over 2.5. The Little Mermaid’s reissue in 1997 got a multiplier of just around 2.77 which is pretty bad for 1997 when frontloading wasn’t much of an issue. E.T.’s re-release in 2002 ended up having a multiplier of just around 2.48 while the reissue of Grease in 1998 barely managed a multiplier above 2.2. The only major exception is The Exorcist: Director’s Cut which got an opening-to-total multiplier of almost 5. I see The Lion King going more the way of the others, though. It should do a bit better than E.T. and Toy Story/Toy Story 2 as its large PTA should see it having theatres added next week. Moreover, there’s no animated competition until November and no big upcoming family films except for Dolphin Tale next weekend. However, I definitely see some sort of frontloading here considering its Saturday increase wasn’t nearly as huge as some expected. Other animated September hits like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Open Season increased over 60% ion their first Saturday whereas The Lion King went up just around 35%. Taking all that into consideration, I expect the film to end up with $75-85 million which is great for a re-release in our day and age.