Second place went to the Brad Pitt baseball drama, Moneyball, which took in over $12-million.

The Lion King 3-D took third with a total of $11-million.

None of the weekend’s four new releases placed higher than fourth, but each cracked the top ten.

The cancer comedy, 50/50, was fourth with $9-million, just ahead of the fifth-place police drama, Courageous. Dream House, the horror thriller, earned $8-million, good for the sixth spot.  And

the Anna Faris comedy, What’s Your Number?, was eighth with $6-million.

But it was holdovers dominating the new attractions at the nation’s multiplexes over the weekend.

Reported by Bill Wine, KYW Newsradio 1060

[listicle id=55129 align=left show_title=true]

Disney classic, ‘The Lion King (3-D)’ has topped the box office for a second week in a row, forcing Brad Pitt’s ‘Moneyball’ into second place. ‘The Lion King’ took in $22.1 million whereas ‘Moneyball’ fared at $20.6 million.

Movie critics were divided over how well ‘Moneyball’ would do at the box office because it’s sports season and people would be outside watching them, rather than inside watching a movie about them. Nevertheless, second place is still very respectable.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A re-release of an old movie topped several new offerings at the box office, with “The Lion King 3-D” making $30.2 million in its debut.

Monday’s final figure surpassed the Sunday studio estimate of $29.3 million.

The Disney animated musical favorite, now rendered in 3-D, features the voices of Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons. It was the rare family film in a sea of challenging and R-rated fare this past weekend.

Last week’s top movie, the Warner Bros. thriller “Contagion,” dropped into second place with $14.5 million. It’s now grossed $44.3 million over two weeks.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “The Lion King 3-D,” Disney, $30,151,614, 2330 locations, $12,941 average, $30,151,614, one week.

2. “Contagion,” Warner Bros., $14,548,433, 3222 locations, $4,515 average, $44,260,524, two weeks.

3. “Drive,” FilmDistrict, $11,340,461, 2886 locations, $3,929 average, $11,340,461, one week.

4. “The Help,” Disney, $6,513,039, 3014 locations, $2,161 average, $147,439,793, six weeks.

5. “Straw Dogs,” Sony Screen Gems, $5,123,760, 2408 locations, $2,128 average, $5,123,760, one week.

6. “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” Weinstein Co., $4,402,201, 2476 locations, $1,778 average, $4,402,201, one week.

7. “The Debt,” Focus, $2,942,631, 1831 locations, $1,607 average, $26,564,431, three weeks.

8. “Warrior,” Lionsgate, $2,860,325, 1883 locations, $1,519 average, $10,002,625, two weeks.

9. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” Fox, $2,658,131, 2340 locations, $1,136 average, $171,651,537, seven weeks.

10. “Colombiana,” Sony Tristar, $2,330,291, 1933 locations, $1,206 average, $33,377,523, four weeks.

11. “Shark Night 3-D,” Relativity Media, $1,801,701, 2082 locations, $865 average, $17,310,402, three weeks.

12. “Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World,” Weinstein Co., $1,590,367, 1650 locations, $964 average, $36,107,734, five weeks.

13. “Crazy Stupid Love,” Warner Bros., $1,566,182, 1145 locations, $1,368 average, $80,736,273, eight weeks.

14. “Our Idiot Brother,” Weinstein Co., $1,2944,791, 1747 locations, $741, $23,672,210, four weeks.

15. “The Smurfs,” Sony Animation Columbia, $1,243,268, 1419 locations, $876 average, $137,593,881, eight weeks.

16. “Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain,” Code Black Entertainment, $1,190,756, 230 locations, $5,177 average, $3,598,262, two weeks.

17. “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” FilmDistrict, $1,124,591, 1334 locations, $843 average, $22,783,502, four weeks.

18. “Apollo 18,” Weinstein Co., $1,097,433, 1795 locations, $611 average, $16,885,842, three weeks.

19. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” Warner Bros., $700,498, 601 locations, $1,166 average, $378,180,621, 10 weeks.

20. “Captain America: The First Avenger,” Paramount, $563,946, 540 locations, $1,044 average, $174,301,520, nine weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

As is the “Circle of Life”, so goes the circle of Disney classics. Disney is re-releasing one of its best animated features, “The Lion King” and this time it’s in 3-D. Sure you may already own it on DVD or even on VHS but the beautiful animation deserves a chance to be seen on the big screen. Your kids are sure to enjoy the adventures of Simba, Pumbaa and Timon, the guidance of Mufasa and Rafiki and all the other characters and songs. The Lion King 3-D is running for two weeks only, starting Sept. 16. Carmike Cinema will be showing it at 4:15pm and 7pm. River Cinema will be showing the movie at 12:00pm, 2:10pm, 4:30pm and 7:15pm. Hakuna Matata!

<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff. Starring Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane, Robert Guillaume, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg.

Seventeen years after the original movie broke box office records and spun a Broadway musical and an award-winning soundtrack, Disney has chosen to re-release the film. The reason: to take advantage of new technologies like the now ubiquitous (and mostly useless) 3-D format. Of course, there are Blu-ray versions of the film too.

But you know, the reason I went to see The Lion King wasn’t because it was in 3-D (apart from an oh-so-niggling itch to rip the format apart) but it was to relive my memories of a favourite movie whose tunes (‘In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight’ and ‘Can you feel the love tonight’) I used to hum in my younger days (yes, I know I’m not that old).

Even Disney’s newfound love of 3-D (only utilised wonderfully in Tron: Legacy and unreservedly wasted in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) can’t spoil this classic. Sure there’s a little more depth to some of the scenes and the king’s major domo Zazu (the delightful Rowan Atkinson) flies in and out of the screen now and then. But the inherent 2-D cell animation nature of the film was probably not conducive to ‘conversion’. Ah yes, the surreptitious trickery of today’s sneaky director shooting his film in 2-D and then cunningly transmogrifying it into a 3-D format to rake in the filthy lucre. Deee-spicable!

But I’m sure good ol’ ‘family values’ Disney had far more innocent intentions. Kudos to Disney for picking this film firstly. A new generation of children will get to see how story triumphs any technical wizardry. How lyrics are far more important than objects flying out at you or snow falling outside the movie screen. How a good script beats flashy 3-D gimmickry any day.

The story of The Lion King is timeless and a treasure that must be kept, in 2-D, 3-D, for eternity. Long live the king!

DVD or Theatre

Theatre, Blu-ray or DVD. Heck even VCD will do. Video cassette: Google it kids…

Surprise (spoiler alert) factor

The stellar cast with gems like Rowan Atkinson as Zazu, Nathan Lane as Timon and Jeremy Irons as the evil Scar.

Sexiness quotient

Well it’s Disney so…

Chicks or guys

Adults, children, girls, guys, kings and queens.

Bring it back or bury it

They’ll never make another like it. In 10 years’ time you’ll be watching The Lion King in 4-double D, IMAX2000 or whatever the latest tech is then.

India release date

July 29, 2011

Video Courtesy: Disney Movies