Overall, the hills that The Lion King has to climb are steeper this time out, and one of them already looks like it’s far from being overcome.
Even looking at Jon Favreau’s previous reworking of the studio’s legendary IP The Jungle Book, that film had both a $175 million budget and a 95% rating from 314 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
But box office is king in the Hollywood pride, and so far Disney’s remake experiments seem to be paying off with better margins when it comes to more modern stories being retold.