Disney and Jon Favreau seems to have made more than just the bare necessities with its CGI/live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book. It just goes to show what utilizing groundbreaking FX and hiring a brilliant voice cast will do for the success of a movie. The film already had a stellar opening weekend and it's not slowing down. The Jungle Book is already shaping up one of the biggest hits of 2016.
According to Variety, The Jungle Book has dominated its second week with $60.8 million domestically. It only dropped 41% from its opening weekend, making its total income $191.5 million in just 10 days. This will make The Jungle Book the fourth largest 2016 title, but it will probably finish higher than that while it remains in theaters.
The Jungle Book is doing just as well globally as it is in the states. The film made $96 million in international markets, making it's global income a whopping total of $528 million. It's also the highest-grossing Hollywood release in India with $28.8 million.
Its main competition for the weekend was Universal’s Huntsman: Winter’s War, the sequel/prequel/reboot to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman. Huntsman: Winter’s War was left in the dust on its opening weekend, earning only $20 million. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Jessica Chastain, Charlize Theron, and Emily Blunt and was directed by Cedric Nicholas-Troyan. The film has not been received well by critics and currently has a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which most likely impacted its performance this weekend.
This is a big win for Disney, who continues to dominate the box office with successes like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Captain America: Civil War, which is currently tracking for a $175 million opening. The Jungle Book is looking to be their most successful live-action adaptation, having gotten mostly positive reviews and performing extremely well at the box office. Its already in development sequel is now pretty justified, and Disney will most likely want to put even more effort into their many other announced live-action adaptations, to ensure a similar success.
It’s hard to bring up the Disney Jungle Book without thinking of that other Jungle Book from Warner Bros. The studio is already feeling the heat and they’ve delayed the film to 2018 and have even brought on Alfonso Cuaron as a "consultant." The film has two years to improve on the special effects, so it might still hold a few surprises.
The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau and written by Justin Marks, stars Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Christopher Walken, Lupita Nyong’o and Neel Sethi as Mowgli and is now open in theaters.
