The Lion King Debuts to “Rotten” Score on Rotten Tomatoes

Disney’s new take on The Lion King has been praised through all of the trailers and teasers that have been released to this point, boasting groundbreaking visuals and an absolutely stellar voice cast. The “live-action” looking Lion King has been poised to become one of the highest grossing films of the entire year, but that could change a little bit now that the reviews are arriving online. Thursday morning, just 12 hours or so after the world premiere of The Lion King, the reviews started to flood the Internet. Much to everyone’s surprise, they’re not nearly as kind as expected.

In fact, there are enough negative reviews that The Lion King actually has a “Rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time of writing this article, 86 total reviews have been counted on Rotten Tomatoes, and 57% of them are negative.

This might have been expected for Dumbo or Aladdin, films whose marketing campaigns were much less celebrated, but The Lion King seemed to be the exception. Alas, that isn’t the case, and all three of Disney’s remakes in 2019 fall on the rotten side of the scale. Dumbo sits at 46% while Aladdin joins The Lion King at 57%.

To be fair, negative reviews don’t mean that a movie isn’t going to make money. Aladdin went on to become a behemoth in spite of its Rotten Tomatoes score, passing $900 million at the worldwide box office. A lot of the success of The Lion King will depend on the audience score once opening weekend arrives.

Jon Favreau’s previous Disney remake, The Jungle Book, still remains the most well-reviewed of these live-action takes. The film boasts a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Pete’s Dragon just behind at 88%. 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, which is the only one of the group to earn more than $1 billion at the box office, has a 71% score.

Are you disappointed by these Lion King reviews? Let us know in the comments.

Disney’s The Lion King arrives in theaters on July 19th.