Thanks to an unexpectedly large opening weekend at the box office, Aladdin has almost already made more than another Disney live-action remake this year. That’s right, Aladdin‘s $112.7 million box office haul this weekend is just short of the $112.98m Tim Burton’s Dumbo made throughout its entire run stateside. The latter is still churning out some cash out the box office, grossing about $1.3m this holiday weekend at a reported 340 theaters in the United States.
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The film is performing much better than the advanced reviews suggest. As of this writing, the Guy Ritchie-directed remake has a Rotten 58 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Interestingly enough, the Audience Score on the same site is completely opposite of the critic’s reaction, weighing in at a near-perfect 94 percent.
ComicBook.com’s Charlie Ridgely called it a “charming remake,” giving it 3 out of 5 stars.
“While Scott is easily the MVP of the Aladdin cast, but she’s not the only one that delivers a solid performance,” Ridgely says in his full review, which you can read here. “Massoud is a charming and lovable Aladdin, and his chemistry with Scott is so wonderfully authentic. Will Smith is unsurprisingly fantastic in just about every scene he’s in, delivering the wit and banter we’ve come to love from the Fresh Prince, and distancing himself enough from Robin Williams’ performance that there’s never a real opportunity to try and compare the two. Yes, the CGI in his first appearance as the giant blue Genie is a little off, but it only lasts for a moment. Once he’s sized down, the Genie works in all forms.”
At one point, Disney had played rather conservatively with their tracking numbers, saying internal projections ended up in the $105m range for the holiday weekend. Performing above expectations has got to be a welcome sight for the House of Mouse, one movie studio that isn’t having any problem making money this year. Counting the three major releases the studio has had this year — Captain Marvel, Dumbo, and Avengers: Endgame — the studio’s made $1.3 billion domestically. That total doesn’t include Aladdin‘s monstrous opening, or the remaining films on the release slate this year for the company, including Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Frozen II, and Star: Wars: The Rise of Skywalker amongst others.
Disney’s Aladdin is now playing in theaters, starring Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari, Navid Negahban, Nasim Pedrad, Numan Acar, Billy Magnussen, and Alan Tudyk.
