Disney’s “The Jungle Book” showed serious traction at the North American box office, dominating moviegoing for a second straight weekend with $60.8 million at 4,028 locations.
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China opened in third place with US$11.1 million at 5,932 sites behind the second week of The Jungle Book and a local film.
“The Huntsman: Winter’s War”, starring Chris Hemsworth, was a critical and commercial flop. “Snow White and the Huntsman” launched in June 2012 – right in between the releases of the final two “Twilight” films. “Its incredible (and somewhat unexpected) success is stoking the fires of box office momentum and is loading up multiplexes with herds of film fans of all ages who are getting pumped up and ready for the official start on May 6 with the incredible ‘Captain America: “Civil War” and then the onslaught of blockbuster hopefuls from every studio week after week”. The part-prequel, part-spinoff was also hampered by poor reviews, unexpectedly heavy competition and a lack of significant audience interest. “We knew it’d be a big hit, but no one could’ve known it’d be this huge”. That’s a minimal decline of only 41% from opening weekend’s $103.3 million.
Despite replacing Snow White and the Huntsman’s master thespian Kristin Stewart with three actresses who can actually act, the critics brought the heat on Winter’s War by way of a damning 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“The Jungle Book”, which features the voices of Bill Murray, Idris Elba and Scarlett Johansson, collected $60.8 million in its second weekend at theaters in the US and Canada, ComScore Inc said Sunday in an e-mailed statement. Opening weekend audiences however gave the film a more promising B+ CinemaScore. Off 46% from last weekend, the Ice Cube comedy has earned $36 million so far and could wind down its run with a respectable $55 million. The billion dollar global milestone is not out of the question.
Jungle is already the fourth highest-earning movie of the year so far and Disney’s second jumbo hit after the animated Zootopia, which holds strong at No. 4 with $6.6 million ($316.4 million total).
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Next weekend sees the arrival of Keanu, Mother’s Day and Ratchet & Clank.
