Disney’s 2019 remake of the classic The Lion King has been named highest-grossing animated movie of all time – despite the studio considering the movie to be “live action”.
The film, which stars Beyonce and Donald Glover and is heavily based on the 1994 animated movie of the same name, has scored a staggering $1.34 billion in the worldwide box office, surpassing Disney’s 2013 blockbuster Frozen, which earned $1.276 billion and was previously the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, to claim the coveted title.
And while Disney doesn’t consider the CGI dominant movie to be animated, box office analysts Exhibitor Relations argued the point in a tweet on Sunday (Augst 11, 2019).
“Disney stated that The Lion King ($1.33B) passed Beauty and the Beast ($1.264B) to become “the highest grossing Disney live action release of all-time,” they shared. “Um. So this was live-action? Semantics aside, that’s an incredible feat.”
Last month, director Jon Favreau also weighed into the debate surrounding the movie, tweeting that there’s only one shot in the feature that isn’t computer-generated.
“This is the only real shot in #TheLionKing,” he posted. “There are 1490 rendered shots created by animators and CG artists. I slipped in one single shot that we actually photographed in Africa to see if anyone would notice. It is the first shot of the movie that begins The Circle of Life.”
The Lion King is currently the second highest-grossing movie of 2019, behind Avengers: Endgame, which was recently declared the highest-grossing movie of all time.
