“Beauty and the Beast” is attracting “Avengers”-style numbers.

Tickets for Walt Disney Co.’s DIS, +0.64% live-action reimagining of the famed fairy tale went on sale on Monday and online movie ticket retailer Fandango — owned by Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA, +0.75% NBCUniversal — says sales are pacing a superhero blockbuster.

“With its dazzling new trailers, [‘Beauty and the Beast’] is creating tremendous buzz among movie fans of all ages,” said Fandango managing editor Erik Davis in a statement. “Its pre-sales rival those of a superhero movie.”

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Compared with other family-friendly fare, “Beauty and the Beast,” at this point in Fandango’s sales cycle, has topped previous record-holder “Finding Dory” for presales of a family-centric film. “Finding Dory” went on to garner $486.3 million at the North American box office and more than $1 billion world-wide.

The film, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, hits theaters March 17, and with six weeks before it opens, Fandango says there are already hundreds of sold-out showtimes across the country.

“Beauty and the Beast” is simply the next puzzle piece in Disney’s broad-picture plan to reviving its old IP as live-action films. The studio has already ushered six live-action remakes into theaters, including two films from “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Jungle Book.” Disney has had success so far, with only two of the six films not having earned more than $500 million world-wide.

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“Alice in Wonderland” pulled in more than $1 billion internationally in 2010 and last April Disney’s “The Jungle Book” earned $966.6 million world-wide.

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Disney has made plans, or otherwise begun developing at least 11 other films from pre-existing IP, including “The Little Mermaid,” “Lion King,” “Aladdin” and “The Sword in the Stone.” And Disney’s commitment to pulling proven family-favorites from the vault comes at time when the genre is earning strong.

During the 2016 summer movie season, which many labeled dismal and disappointing, PG-rated and family-friendly films were, for the most part, an outlier. Disney’s “Finding Dory” was the highest earning movie from the summer las year. And three of the top five grossing films from 2016 were family films: “Finding Dory,” Universal Pictures’ “The Secret Life of Pets” and “The Jungle Book.”