Seven weeks into its lucrative theatrical run, Beauty and the Beast has been crowned king of the domestic box office – for PG films, at least – after Box Office Mojo revealed that Bill Condon’s wondrous live-action feature has now overtaken Finding Dory domestically.
The latter pulled in an eye-watering $486 million on home turf back in 2016, but it wasn’t enough to fend off the oncoming Beauty and the Beast, which just recently passed $487 million. That domestic figure will no doubt continue to climb over the coming weeks as Disney’s reimagining approaches the end of its theatrical run, and it’s worth noting that the worldwide total currently stands at $1.18 billion, which places the movie neck and neck with The Fate of the Furious ($1.16 billion).
Beyond the PG bracket, Beauty and the Beast now finds itself sandwiched between Finding Dory and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($532 million) at eighth place on the all-time domestic charts. Indeed, just yesterday we learned that the latter tentpole completed its theatrical run well in excess of $1 billion, which certainly bodes well for the future of Disney’s planned Star Wars anthology films.
With the back-to-back success of The Jungle Book ($966 million) and now Beauty and the Beast ($1.18 billion), it’s small wonder why Disney is leaving no stone unturned in its ongoing quest to repackage its vast archive of fairytales into crowd-pleasing hits. Also in the works is a modern rendition of The Lion King, a Cruella de Vil film featuring Emma Stone, a Guy Ritchie-helmed Aladdin movie, and a live-action redo of Mulan. And we’ve barely scratched the surface.
The big question now is, will the Mouse House explore the possibility of a Beauty and the Beast spinoff movie?