Disney conquered the weekend box office in a major way with The Jungle Book. Jon Favreau’s reboot of the Mouse House’s beloved animated classic. The, filmed using mixture of live-action and photo-realistic CGI, earned an estimated $103 million in its opening weekend. This figure far exceeded even the loftiest of industry expectations and bodes well for robust word-of-mouth business, thanks to generous ratings from both critics and audiences. Unsurprisingly, Disney has already fast-tracked a sequel.
The Jungle Book‘s toll is also the second largest April opening in history, behind last year’s Furious 7 (which minted $147 million); number three on the all-time April list is Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Solider, which earned $95 million in 2014. Tracking for The Jungle Book was way off as industry analysts expected the film would hit somewhere in $80 million mark. The robust surge in ticket sales comes after curious two-week lull – the industry seemed to bow out early April, expecting Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to rule the roost. This past weekend saw more good news for Disney as their spring blockbuster Zootopia jumped over the $300 million hurdle in its seventh week of release. Animals are proving quite successful for Disney so far this year.
In other box office related news, A24 Films released the gritty arthouse potboiler Green Room to substantial success. The film, from Blue Ruin director Jeremy Saulnier which stars Patrick Stewart and Anton Yelchin, earned an estimated $90,000 in its opening frame in limited release. That the film is playing in only three theaters and earned a per-screen average of $30,000 suggest A24 might have another solid indie hit on their hands. For comparisons sake, Blue Ruin earned just $250,000 total when it opened in the spring of 2014.
What did you see this weekend?
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