It feels like forever since there was a movie that made news for box office success, but Jumanji: The Next Level has now done that, several months after opening. Jumanji: The Next Level has officially crossed the $800 million mark at the global box office, and despite the time and struggle it took to get to that point, in fact, because of it, Kevin Hart is thanking the people who made it happen.
Jumanji: The Next Level was just short of the $800 million mark, at about $796 million, when most theaters around the world were closed down, that's still largely the case, but the movie played in enough places last week for the movie to finally crack the threshold. Kevin Hart took to Instagram to thank all the fans that made the sequel a hit, as well as the team behind the movie.
Movie theaters were open in about a dozen nations last week, including Brazil, Australia, and Norway and that was enough to get Jumanji: The Next Level passed the $800 million mark. The film originally opened in December 2019 and it certainly had made most of its money by the time movie theaters around the world started to close, but the pent up demand, combined with the fact that new releases have come to a standstill apparently meant that a lot of people in those countries decided to either go see the Jumanji sequel again or give it a try for the first time.
Jumanji: The Next Level's $800 million gross is down from the previous film's $962 million, but when your first film grossed nearly $1 billion, a number which was quite unexpected at the time, you can afford to see a drop in box office response. Most movies would kill to do $800 million worldwide. It makes another film in the franchise seem quite likely, though do to the general confusion surrounding film productions and releases, it could be some time before we see that film.
It feels almost quaint to be talking about a movie's box office response. At this point, we just don't know when that will happen again. Not that long ago we thought we'd finally be getting new movies as soon as this coming Friday, but that has now been pushed back to August and we're far from certain that we won't see those movies pushed back once again.
And even when theaters reopen, not everybody who might normally have visited them will necessarily be willing to do so, and with social distancing measures in place, it might actually be difficult for those that want to go. So it could be quite some time before we see a movie make $800 million at the global box office.
