‘Aladdin’ tops weekend box office despite mixed reactions

The highly-anticipated live-action remake of Disney classic Aladdin finally hit theaters this weekend.

Despite mixed reviews and some backlash before its debut, the film absolutely crushed the box office Memorial Day weekend.

Read more: Chromatics drop spooky Hole cover for Netflix horror film

The remake of the 1992 animated film brought in $86 million domestically during its first three days in theaters and $121 million internationally.

The film was only expected to make about $90 million during its opening weekend including Monday and it almost beat that as of Sunday. It now tops the holiday weekend’s box office.

Despite the huge success, the film has gotten mixed reviews. It only has a 58 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and many reviews have called out downfalls in the film.

Also, there was some backlash before the film even debuted. Last year, Disney has shared a statement confirming that white actors were “made up” in order to blend into crowd scenes in the movie.

Film extra Kaushal Odedra tells BBC he saw “around twenty” actors were made up to look Arabian.

Aladdin was the perfect time to show diversity but also be accurate,” he says. “They’re being out of touch with what’s going on around them.”

Disney’s response says that they aimed to put together “one of the largest, most diverse casts,” and it was only a “handful of instances” where the crew were “made up to blend in.”

“Great care was taken to put together one of the largest, most diverse casts ever seen on screen,” Disney said in a statement, Deadline reports.

“Diversity of our cast and background performers was a requirement and only in a handful of instances when it was a matter of specialty skills, safety and control (special effects rigs, stunt performers and handling of animals) were crew made up to blend in.”

Another issue the film faced was following the release of an Entertainment Weekly cover of the main characters in December, fans were disappointed to see Genie without his familiar blue skin tone.

Will Smith, who plays Genie, responded with an Instagram post assuring his followers that he would be blue in the film and that the promo photo was just Genie in his human disguise.

However, fans were less than enthused with the Genie’s blue hue following the trailer’s release.

A first look at characters such as Abu and Magic Carpet were also included. The film’s antagonist, Jafar, was also seen, but seemed less than enthused according to some.

“Everyone is talking about the Genie, but Jafar looks and sounds the most questionable. He’s so… plain,” Reddit user u/TheLiquidNight said.

However, the film is still doing well after its debut.

Alongside Smith, Naomi Scott plays Jasmine in the film and Mena Massoud plays Aladdin himself. Billy Magnussen, Nasim Pedrad and Marwan Kenzari also star in the film.

You can check out the trailer below.

More Aladdin news

On The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Smith talked about the role at the Genie and eventually revealed he raps a classic song from the film. He even gave viewers a sneak peek at what it sounds like.

It started when he talked about his touching tribute to Robin Williams, and what it was like to take on the role after him.

“Robin Williams smashed that role and when you look at things like that, you always try to find out what you would do differently,” he said. “I looked at it and the first thing was I didn’t feel like I wanted to touch it.”

However, after some time, he realized he wanted to mix up the music a bit, particularly the classic song “Friend Like Me.” He took the drums from the song “Impeach the President” by The Honey Drippers as a backdrop to his rap-version.

Then, he rapped the first verse of the huge song on the show, and it made us so excited to hear the whole thing.

You can watch Smith’s rapping in the video below.

For comparison, check out the original version below.

Have you seen Aladdin sound off in the comments below!

See more: 10 concert posters from your favorite bands before they blew up

[envira-gallery id=”199143″]