Who's laughing at the big blue genie now? We've already talked about how Disney's 2019 Aladdin remake is one of the only movies in 2019 to actually overperform from expectations. It's still crushing out there.
And yet somehow I was still surprised when Will Smith took to social media on June 27 to let fans know Aladdin had just become the highest-grossing movie of his career to date. Smith is 50-years-old and he's been making hit movies since the early '90s, so this is quite an accomplishment. Here's what he said to fans:
This is a post that I'm just humbled and honored to make right now. Today, Aladdin just passed Independence Day as the highest grossing film of my entire career. To be in this game as long as I've been in this game, and to have my biggest movie at this point in my career, I just want to say thank you.
So he said thank you in several different languages to emphasize how much fans around the world have helped his career, including the Aladdin box office. Check out his Instagram video:
Aladdin has made $821,250,530 worldwide and counting. It still ranks high each week on the domestic box office charts, always just behind the new releases and usually ahead of whatever came out the previous week. Aladdin has made $296.5M domestic so far and $524.7M internationally. So you can understand why he'd want to single out each country for thanks.
Independence Day made $817,400,891 worldwide, from a very similar split -- $306M domestic and $511M worldwide.
Granted, Independence Day came out in 1996. If we adjusted for inflation, the change in ticket prices would still give Independence Day the edge.
Box Office Mojo does have adjusted domestic figures (not worldwide), and they show that Independence Day would still be Will Smith's #1 movie, followed by Men In Black, Suicide Squad, I Am Legend, and then Aladdin. But that's not counting the foreign box office into the totals.
Worldwide, unadjusted for ticket price inflation, Aladdin is tops, followed by Independence Day, then Suicide Squad with $746.8 million, Hancock with $624.4 million, and MIB 3 with $624 million.
Aladdin is still expected to be in the top five at the box office this pre-Independence Day weekend. It's projected to make about $9.3 million, behind Toy Story 4, Annabelle Comes Home, and Yesterday.
It used to be that Will Smith was the king of July 4 weekends, but Aladdin is proving that he doesn't need that summer weekend to slay. Not that he's the only draw of Aladdin, far from it, but he took the heat when people mocked his genie, so he has ever right to be happy and proud that the world approved in the end. Genie, you're free.
