Turns out Belle’s life is anything but provincial. The Emma Watson-led “Beauty and the Beast” opened huge this past weekend, earning $170 million in North America and $350 million globally. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Disney’s live-action remake of the 1991 animated classic also shattered a bunch of box office records, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Besting last year’s “Finding Dory,” “Beauty and the Beast” is now the PG-rated film with the highest domestic and international opening. It also displaced the final “Harry Potter” film (another Watson project) to become the seventh largest opening of all time. It’s the United States’ highest-earning film since “Captain America: Civil War’s” debut last May. And “Beauty and the Beast” set a new record for Disney, becoming the studio’s best domestic opening since “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010.
The film’s biggest coup is that it set a new high for a “female-fueled film,” as THR phrases it. “‘Beauty’ once again underscores the buying power of women and girls,” the source details. “On Friday, more than 70 percent of ticket buyers were females, although that percentage evened out over the weekend to 60 percent, according to Disney. Either way, no movie fueled at this level by femmes of all ages has ever opened to such big numbers. By way of comparison, ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ debuted to $158.1 million in November 2014, while ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ took in $142 million in November 2009 for a series-best mark for each.”
Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis told THR, “There were a combination of factors that made this a recipe for success. There was a nostalgia for the original and the Disney brand. Plus, there is an iconic soundtrack with old and new songs. Emma Watson was perfectly cast as Belle.”
“Beauty and the Beast” still has markets to mine. As Deadline reports, the film has upcoming debuts in France and Australia this week, and will be opening in Japan April 21.
For now, the Bill Condon-directed film is exceeding box office trackers’ predictions and is generating positive word-of-mouth from audiences. “Beauty and the Beast” earned an A CinemaScore from viewers. “Nearly half the audience were adults and teens, a startling stat for a PG family title,” THR notes. “The remainder were parents and kids.”
IMAX screenings of the film were also a win for “Beauty.” From IMAX alone, it earned $12.5 million in North America and $21 million worldwide, besting last year’s “Jungle Book” ($18 million) for the top PG title, THR summarizes.
We couldn’t be happier about this news. We knew that “Beauty and the Beast” would be big: The aforementioned box office predictions and trailer numbers made that clear a long while ago. But this women-centric film’s huge opening is a boon for women’s stories and feminism at the movies. Because audiences didn’t flock to theaters just for nostalgia’s sake — they flocked to it because Belle is a hero for all of us. As our own Melissa Silverstein put it, “This movie is for boys and girls and men and women. It’s for everyone. That’s the power of women’s stories. They are universal and relatable.”
