With “Cinderella”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Maleficent”, and now “The Jungle Book”, this strategy of revitalizing fairy tales has become a virtual brand onto itself. More plundering of the Disney library is in the works: “Cruella De Ville” and “Peter Pan” are in development; “Beauty and the Beast” is scheduled for next March.
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The live-action movie uses computer wizardry to bring to life the characters from Rudyard Kipling’s classic stories about a boy named Mowgli who is raised by animals. “He’s been able to do it in a way that really makes them contemporary and, certainly in this case, fully utilizes available technology”. It opens in other counties this weekend – including China, the U.K., France, Germany and Mexico – and could take in $75 million or more internationally.
The final weekend result surpassed even wild expectations and stands as the second-highest April opening ever behind 2015’s Furious 7 (at $147 million).
The Melissa McCarthy vehicle “The Boss” (Universal) fell 57 percent in its second weekend – by far the biggest post-opening drop of her career – to place third, with about $10.2 million in ticket sales and a new total of $40.4 million.
In this image released by Warner Bros., Nicki Minaj, foreground from left, Eve and Common appear in a scene from the film, “Barbershop: The Next Cut”.
“Disney has had a pretty supercalifragilistic box office track record with their live action reboots of their animated classics”, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “Disney has this knack for taking something that’s very old and making it new again”.
Probably the biggest loser of the weekend though was the Kevin Costner actioner Criminal, which earned a mere 5.8 million dollars in sixth place. It cost just north of $30 million to produce.
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In limited release, the Weinstein Company opened the musical-dramedy “Sing Street” in five locations, where it grossed $68,979 for a per-theater average of $13,796. Where available, the latest worldwide numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. ($1.3 million international).
