‘Lion King’ Leads Films to Roaring Weekend : Movies: Animated feature collects an estimated $42 million, beating out ‘Speed,’ which takes in $12.5 million. ‘Wyatt Earp’ comes in fourth.

“The Lion King,” Disney’s fourth animated hit in a row, took in an estimated $42 million in its first weekend of nationwide release, making it the studio’s largest opening weekend ever--twice that of “Aladdin”--and the third highest in film history behind “Jurassic Park” and “Batman Returns.”

The powerhouse opening of the Disney feature led a box-office surge that will likely establish the just-ended Friday-through-Sunday period as one of the two top-grossing non-holiday weekends in movie-going history. Preliminary estimates showed it neck and neck with the $99.2-million weekend last July that offered “The Firm,” the monster hit “Jurassic Park” and the opening of “In the Line of Fire.” Final figures will be released today.

Twentieth Century Fox’s “Speed,” the early summer’s hottest word-of-mouth film, finished in second place with a $12.5-million take--a drop of only 3% in its third week. Last week’s leader, Columbia’s “Wolf,” held its own with an anticipated $12.3 million. After 29 days in release, Universal’s “The Flintstones” surpassed the $100-million mark--coming in just behind Lawrence Kasdan’s “Wyatt Earp,” which, in a somewhat disappointing fourth-place debut, raked in $7.4 million on 1,859 screens.

“When you have a $65-million picture starring Kevin Costner that doesn’t open to $10 million in the summertime, you have problems,” observed one studio marketing executive.

“This one opened on star power,” suggested another. “It remains to be seen if the movie is there.”

Industry analysts chalk up “Earp’s” lackluster performance to a number of factors. Like Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning epic “Dances With Wolves,” the picture has a three-hour-plus running time that restricts the number of showings each day. The dark, didactic tone of the film is at odds with the usual summer fare. The similarly-themed “Tombstone,” which has grossed more than $50 million since its Christmas release, surfaced on video this week. And the tepid-to-negative reviews accorded “Earp”--one of several Westerns released in the past year--didn’t help.

Barry Riordan, president of Warner Bros. distribution, said, however, that he never expected more than a $6-million to $9-million box-office weekend.

“You’ve got to remember that a three-hour picture allows for only three shows a day,” he said. “Another of our three-hour releases, ‘JFK,’ opened at $5.2 million--and that ended up doing just fine.”

“Earp” played better in the West than in the East, better in cities than in small towns--unlike “The Lion King,” whose 10 million tickets sold were spread out evenly nationwide. Disney’s 32nd animated feature is expected to join “Speed” (with a cumulative gross of $55 million in just three weeks of release) and “The Flintstones” as the summer’s $100-million grossers. “Maverick,” at $80 million in ticket sales in its six-week release, may also reach that plateau.

Things look less bright for “City Slickers II,” the weekend’s sixth-place finisher with $4.7 million, which is struggling in a crowded summer field. Warner Bros. release of “Wyatt Earp” does not seem to have affected the studio’s “Maverick,” a tongue-in-cheek star-studded Western which picked up $3.8 million over the weekend to finish in seventh place.

MGM’s “Getting Even With Dad” took in only $3.2 million in its second weekend of release, however, raising questions about whether a long-haired Macaulay Culkin in his first adolescent role can still fill the seats.

Rounding out the Top 10 were Touchstone’s “Renaissance Man” and Universal’s “The Cowboy Way.”

Though the predominance of “The Lion King,” so far, hasn’t spelled disaster for the competition, with five films opening this week, industry sources expect the race to heat up. The new releases will include “I Love Trouble,” “Little Big League,” “Blown Away,” “Baby’s Day Out” and “The Shadow.”

“Instead of erosion, we’ve seen an expansion of the marketplace,” observed John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations, a box-office tracking firm. “But next week will be the killer. With five pictures surfacing--three on the same day--there’s really going to be a blood bath.”