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Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?

Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?

David10086 Profile Photo
David10086
#1Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?
Posted: 11/25/22 at 11:33am

Last week on THE VIEW, Julie Taymor was a guest promoting the 25 th Anniversary of THE LION KING. During the interview, Whoopi said the show has the most successful box office for a Broadway musical in history. Can this be true? I would think that distinction would go to POTO. 

jkcohen626 Profile Photo
jkcohen626
#2Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?
Posted: 11/25/22 at 11:49am

They chose their language carefully. Phantom has been open longer, but Lion King has made significantly more money. Wicked is actually number 2, then Phantom at number 3.

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JoeW4
#3Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?
Posted: 11/25/22 at 12:04pm

If you go to each show's gross page on BWW, it indicates that Phantom has an all-time gross of $1,310,379,968, while Lion King has an all-time gross of $1,788,077,255. So yeah, Lion King has grosses more.

Phantom has been running about 9 years longer than Lion King, but remember that the duration of those 9 years, ticket prices weren't even close to what they are today. And while Phantom has been pretty successful in the past 25 years (the length of Lion King's run), it hasn't been packing houses at top-dollar prices the way Lion King has. So with (a) all that success, with (b) a long runway to catch up, and (c) ticket prices much higher than they were during Phantom's "head start," Lion King was able to catch up way back in 2012

https://playbill.com/article/the-lion-king-takes-phantoms-throne-as-highest-grossing-broadway-musical-com-189258

David10086 Profile Photo
David10086
#4Most successful box office for a Broadway musical?
Posted: 11/26/22 at 11:24pm

Thank you both for the responses. Now it makes sense ! 

I had wondered if they took in the box office receipts from their American tours, as well ? 


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