Aladdin, you ain't never had a friend like the 2019 box office! Aladdin is one of the only movies so far this year to actually overperform from expectations. Sure, it opened to less than Toy Story 4, but Toy Story 4 just "underperformed" based on higher expectations. Aladdin -- who knew Aladdin would still be in the top 3 of the box office charts a month after opening in a year this competitive?
Aladdin just took third place (again) on the domestic box office charts, picking up $12.2 million. It also picked up another $33 million at the foreign markets. That put it past $800 million worldwide. Its current total is $810,110,128, with $522.6 million of that coming from the international box office. The world loves it.
There are a few reasons why this $800 million success (so far!) is surprising.
First, after Dumbo came out as the first big Disney remake of the year and underperformed, expectations were revised for Aladdin. Dumbo only made $351.2 million worldwide. Aladdin has already handily doubled that, and it's clearly still strong in the market.
Second, early trailers for Aladdin had fans griping about several things, especially Will Smith as the Genie.
Third, Aladdin got meh reviews from critics. It's sitting at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes lukewarm reviews can be a death sentence, but not this time. The Audience Score is 94% and the polled moviegoers at CinemaScore gave Aladdin an "A."
Also, Aladdin just lost 121 theaters going into the June 21-23, 2019 weekend and it still took third place. That's not too many lost screens, compared to Dark Phoenix for example, but the movie still only dropped 29.5% from last week. And that's after being out for its fifth week.
Aladdin is currently playing in 3,435 theaters, per Box Office Mojo. That's nearly 800 fewer theaters than Men in Black International, which just opened last week and made $2 million less than Aladdin this week.
When Aladdin opened, it actually made more than the initial projections, and it went on to join the list of top Memorial Day weekend openings. Week after week in this ridiculously -- seriously, ridiculously -- oversaturated market, Aladdin still rises to the top. So many other franchise movies are disappointing so far in 2019, but not Aladdin.
Disney has been slaying 2019 so far, as expected, since it owns just about everything now and it seems to have a new release every other week. Toy Story 4 just came out, and The Lion King is coming soon. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Monday, June 24) and don't be shocked if you hear about record-setting presales.
The Lion King is another one with high expectations, so if it doesn't meet those expectations, we'll hear about it "underperforming." Sometimes, as with Aladdin, it pays to come in with lower expectations. Disney is never the underdog, but within the Disney ranks, Aladdin qualified. Not anymore. Keep up with everything still to come this year with our handy 2019 movie schedule.
