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‘The Lion King’ bites off $185 million debut, a July record

'The Lion King' devours a mighty $185 million in first weekend, a July and PG-rating record.

FILE - This file image released by Disney shows, from left, young Simba, voiced by JD McCrary, Timon, voiced by Billy Eichner, and Pumbaa, voiced by Seth Rogen, in a scene from "The Lion King." The Walt Disney Co. is ruling the box office again with the record-breaking debut of “The Lion King” this weekend. The studio says Sunday, July 21, 2019 that the photorealistic remake devoured an estimated $185 million in ticket sales from 4,725 North American locations. It’s a record for the month of July, PG-rated films and the ninth highest opening of all time.(Disney via AP, File)
FILE - This file image released by Disney shows, from left, young Simba, voiced by JD McCrary, Timon, voiced by Billy Eichner, and Pumbaa, voiced by Seth Rogen, in a scene from "The Lion King." The Walt Disney Co. is ruling the box office again with the record-breaking debut of “The Lion King” this weekend. The studio says Sunday, July 21, 2019 that the photorealistic remake devoured an estimated $185 million in ticket sales from 4,725 North American locations. It’s a record for the month of July, PG-rated films and the ninth highest opening of all time.(Disney via AP, File)Read morenull / AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. is ruling the box office again with the record-breaking debut of "The Lion King" this weekend.

The studio says Sunday that the photorealistic remake devoured an estimated $185 million in ticket sales from 4,725 North American locations. It's a record for the month of July and PG-rated films, and the ninth-highest opening of all time.

Globally it's already grossed $531 million. No other studio even dared to go up against "The Lion King" with a major release.

In its third weekend, "Spider-Man: Far From Home" fell to second place with $21 million. "Toy Story 4" took third with $14.6 million.

And with an additional $1.5 million from the weekend, “Avengers: Endgame” has officially surpassed “Avatar” as the biggest film of all time with $2.79 billion.