This Memorial Day weekend could be the top-grossing at the box office of all time, thanks in large part to a duo of high-powered blockbuster releases, one of which—Disney’s Lilo & Stitch—is on track to secure one of the highest, if not the highest, domestic opening weekend gross of 2025 so far, a title that currently belongs to A Minecraft Movie ($162.7M). Even if Lilo & Stitch debuts on the lower end of our predicted three-day range of $160M – $185M, its opening weekend gross will be higher than the entire domestic run of its animated predecessor ($145.7M)… and tens of millions higher than 2025’s other Disney remake, Snow White, which opened to $42.2M in March ($86.9M domestic total, as of 5/22/25). Below, the company Lilo & Stitch will keep if it lands among the top five domestic highest-grossing remakes of Disney animated classics.
1. THE LION KING
Release Date: 7/19/19
Domestic Opening: $191.7M
Domestic Total: $543.6M
International Total: $1.11B
Worldwide Total: $1.66B
2019 represents the high-water mark for Disney’s batch of remakes of its animated classics, with four such films—The Lion King, Aladdin, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and Dumbo—opening in theaters for a combined in-year domestic total of $1.12B, just shy of 10 percent of the $11.4B earned by the entire domestic market that year. Disney would follow up 2019’s The Lion King with the 2024 prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, which earned 47 percent of what The Lion King did domestically: $254.5M compared to $543.6M. Until earlier this year, The Lion King‘s $1.66B haul made it the tenth-largest global release of all time; it was pushed to number 11 by the Chinese animated smash hit Ne Zha 2 ($1.89B).
2. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Release Date: 3/17/17
Domestic Opening: $174.7M
Domestic Total: $504M
International Total: $851.6M
Worldwide Total: $1.35B
The second-highest grossing film of 2017 both domestically and globally (in both cases trailing only Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi), Beauty and the Beast holds the record for the highest-grossing non-animated musical of all time, a title that it’s so far been able to maintain despite last year’s Wicked ($437M domestic gross, $755.7M global gross) nipping at its heels. The film dominated an unusually robust Q1, which saw four other films—Logan, The Lego Batman Movie, The Boss Baby, and Kong: Skull Island—open above $50M domestically. By comparison, 2016 saw only three Q1 releases—Deadpool, Zootopia, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—open above $50M, and in 2018 that number was down to one: Black Panther.
3. THE JUNGLE BOOK
Release Date: 4/15/16
Domestic Opening: $103.2M
Domestic Total: $364M
International Total: $603.7M
Worldwide Total: $967.7M
Disney’s The Jungle Book remake blew past expectations with a $100M-plus mid-April opening that was followed by modest holds well into the summer, putting to rest concerns that Disney’s Memorial Day weekend release of Alice Through the Looking Glass would have a dampening effect on holdover traffic. Ultimately, The Jungle Book came out on top, spending three weeks as the highest-grossing film in the domestic market and five weeks in the top five, with 3D surcharges emerging as a major factor in its successful theatrical run. Alice Through the Looking Glass, meanwhile, was trounced by X-Men: Apocalypse over the holiday weekend, opening to $26.8M and topping out at $77M—less than The Jungle Book’s opening weekend haul. The Jungle Book contributed to a banner year for Disney, one in which they released every single one of the top five global releases and four of the top five domestic releases, with The Jungle Book coming in at number five in both cases.
4. ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Release Date: 3/5/10
Domestic Opening: $116.1M
Domestic Total: $334.1M
International Total: $691.2M
Worldwide Total: $1.02B
Only the sixth film in history to gross over $1B globally during its original release, Alice in Wonderland is the film that kicked Disney’s interest in remaking its classic animated properties into high gear. The film could hardly have come out at a better time. The industry’s transition to digital projection technology, kicked off in earnest by the release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace roughly a decade prior, reached the point of no return as theaters rushed to upgrade their projectors before the December 2009 release of James Cameron’s Avatar. That film kicked off a near-mania for 3D that Alice in Wonderland was able to capitalize on when it came out roughly two and a half months later. By the time Alice in Wonderland‘s sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, came out in 2016, the 3D craze had largely died down; as reported by Deadline, 71 percent of the first Alice‘s domestic box office came from 3D tickets, while for Alice Through the Looking Glass‘ Memorial Day weekend opening that number was down to 41 percent.
5. ALADDIN
Release Date: 5/24/19
Domestic Opening: $91.5M (3-Day)
Domestic Total: $355.5M
International Total: $271.4M
Worldwide Total: $569.6M
2019 was a big year for Disney, one in which they released seven of the top ten domestic grossers, with one of the other three—Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home—benefiting from its inclusion in Disney’s MCU. In terms of remakes of Disney’s animated classics, The Lion King was 2019’s big headline, but Aladdin certainly didn’t disappoint. Its $91.5M 3-day ($116.8M four-day) opening made it the second-highest Memorial Day weekend opener for Disney at the time, trailing only Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. In 2023, it was pushed one more spot down the list by The Little Mermaid… and it’s likely to slip down once more when Lilo & Stitch opens this weekend. Aladdin was particularly strong in several international territories, including Japan, where it was the highest grosser of the year with $122.4M, and South Korea, at spot number four with $91M.
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