Lion King 3D Roars At The US Box Office

Don’t worry – you haven’t travelled back in time to 1994. The Lion King has simply slapped on a fresh coat of 3D paint and roared to the top of the US box office charts thanks to its shiny new re-release. Insert your own Hakuna Matata joke here about the movie’s surprising success, as Simba and co took in $29.3 million to win the weekend despite a trio of new releases for competition.

The old new arrival pushed last week’s champ, viral thriller Contagion, down to second place, but Steven Soderbergh’s film still proved to have a powerful effect on audiences, with $14.4 million for the weekend. In third place we find Ryan Gosling screeching around LA in Drive. While the movie has been given plenty of love by critics, it seems cinemagoers weren’t quite as enamoured. Still, a first weekend of $11 million isn’t too shabby considering it wasn’t a mega budget thriller.

Fourth place went to The Help, which is slowly starting to drop down the charts, earning $6.4 million this weekend. That still put it ahead of the Straw Dogs reboot, which kicked off its run with $5 million in fifth.

In sixth, we find the last of the big wide releases, with the Sarah Jessica Parker-starring I Don’t Know How She Does It failing to juggle motherhood, work and box office riches with $4.5 million. Seventh was The Debt, which earned $2.9 million and Warrior was eighth with $2.7 million. Rise of the Planet of the Apes slipped to ninth with $2.6 million, while Colombiana landed in 10th with $2.3 million.Read more at Empire Online