Beauty and the Beasthas passed yet another milestone. Disney has become such adominant force at the box officethat they have had to start resorting to beating their own records. But it’s a new record nonetheless.Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beasthas just become the highest-grossing PG movie at the domestic box office of all time.
According toBox Office Mojo,Beauty and the Beasthas made $487.59 million playing domestically That just edges out 2016’sFinding Dory, which made a truly impressive $486.29 last year. Even though it wasn’t originally made by Disney, the next highest-grossing PG movie isStar Wars: The Phantom Menace, which grossed $474.5 million domestically back in 1999. Since Disney now owns Lucasfilm, anything to do withStar Warslives within the Mouse House, so that movie is now associated with Disney as well. Point being, this record really just means Disney is continuing to make more money.
Internationally,Beauty and the Beastis an even bigger success and will probably wind up being one of the highest-grossing movies of 2017 overall. To date, the movie has grossed a grand total of $1.185 billion worldwide.Finding Dorymade just a hair over $1 billion last year, soBeauty and the Beasthas also been moreappealing to audiencesworldwide than theFinding Nemosequel was. As it stands,Beauty and the Beastis the highest-grossing movie of the year, butThe Fate of the Furiousis closing in quickly, with $1.158 billion already in box office receipts. It should wind up overtakingBeauty and the Beastby the time all is said and done.
Disney has truly mastered the art of appealing to the masses in recent years, and a lot of that has come from their PG offerings. Not only haveFinding DoryandBeauty and the Beastdominated over the last couple of years, but several other of the studio’s PG movies have also done very well.Alice in Wonderland($1.025 billion),Zootopia($1.023 billion),Inside Out($857 million),The Jungle Book($966.5 million) andFrozen($1.27 billion) have all been huge box office successes in the current decade. With sequels in the works for a few of those titles, as well as plenty of other live-action remakes, this trend of Disney making PG-rated Box Office record-breakers will probably continue for the foreseeable future.
The original animatedBeauty and the Beastwas a big success in its own right, having grossed $424.9 million worldwide. Though, it was rated G. Outside of that, the movie was a major critical success, becoming the first animated movie to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Though this live-action remake hasn’t been received quite as well critically, it was received mostly positively by critics and audiences, which has helped push it to such great success financially. And the inclusion ofDisney’s first gay characterin a fairytale movie didn’t hurt things one bit. WhileBeaty and the Beast 2is off the table, Disney may be planning a series of spin-offs from the blockbuster.
