Disney’s musical The Lion King has beaten The Phantom of the Opera to become the most successful show of all time.
The musical has grossed a staggering $6.2 billion worldwide, making it the most successful box office blockbuster ever – across all entertainment media.
The Lion King passed The Phantom of the Opera’s $6 billion top spot in August 2014.
According to the Associated Press, producers of Phantom – Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group – congratulated Disney, naming the show the “Pride of Broadway.”
The Lion King’s onstage success bypasses takings from any Disney movie, and other any major movies including Harry Potter, Titanic and even Avatar – which is history’s highest grossing movie having made nearly $2.8 billion worldwide.
The show is currently playing at the Lyceum Theatre in London, the Minskoff Theatre in New York, and in Tokyo, Las Vegas, Hamburg and on a North America tour.
Phantom, however, keeps its crown as the longest-running show in Broadway history – with the original production at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London also still going strong.
Disney’s The Lion King is directed by Julie Taymor and features music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, and is based on the hugely successful Disney animated movie.
The show is still performing well in London and New York, with the Broadway production beating all other shows last year to be the highest grossing of 2013, with 2014 shaping up to be the same. It has also increased its audience in four of the last five years on Broadway, with the London show seeing a 6% increase in attendance over the last five years.
According to a Disney rep, the Broadway audience for the show is divided into four equals groups: Manhattan residents, commuters from New York and surrounding States, domestic US tourists and overseas tourists, a statistic which is likely to be mirrored in London.
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