MUMBAI: The 3D re-release of the 1994 made The Lion King has edged out the Steven Soderbergh-directed Warner Bros. film Contagion to be on the top spot of the North American box office on its debut weekend.

The film has done much better than the studio executives had expected, earning $29.3 million from around 2,330 cinema halls in the US and Canada during the weekend.

Pixar‘s Toy Story and its 2009 3D sequel held the record earlier when it garnered $12.5 million in its opening weekend. And it so happened that being the biggest blockbuster from the stables of Disney, the film also had two made-for-video sequels, a television series and a Broadway musical.

The Lion King was reproduced in its 3D version mainly due to the existence of a huge audience in their twenties and families who account for 74 per cent of the viewing public.

The original Lion King released in 1994 maintains the record of the fifth highest grossing animated film and continues to be the highest-grossing hand drawn animation film ever made.