The Jungle Book’s second weekend drop of just 41.1% is better than that of Disney’s 2010 hit live-action Alice in Wonderland, which slipped 46% in its second frame. In fact The Jungle Book’s second weekend showing is the fourth smallest drop ever for a film that opened with over $100 million, and compares with the 39% drops of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man film in 2002.
The Jungle Book is also going gangbusters overseas where it took in $96 million, just a 32% slide from last weekend. With a worldwide total of $528.5 million, that is already bigger than Oz: The Great and Powerful’s $493 million total, The Jungle Book is poised to race past previous Disney “live-action” adaptations Cinderella ($543 million) and Maleficent ($728 million). One problem for Disney will be keeping screens overseas for The Jungle Book with the overseas debuts of Captain America: Civil War, but that is a problem that lots of studios (like Warner Bros.) would love to have.
Right now it appears that The Jungle Book will surely pass the $300 million mark, joining Deadpool, Batman v. Superman, and Zootopia, and marking the first time that a quartet of new films had achieved that mark before the start of the summer movie season, which means that if Hollywood can keep up this pace, another yearly box office record should be in sight.
Disney’s success in turning public domain fantasies into “live-action” hits stands in contrast to Universal’s failure with The Huntsman: Winter’s War, which earned just $20.1 million from 3800 theaters, a total that was just 36% of the $56.2 million that Snow White and the Huntsman debuted with in 2012. Was it Kristen Stewart’s Snow White that made the 2012 film such a hit, or are audiences beginning to tire of this sort of green screen fantasy? Whatever the reason, the $115 million Huntsman: Winter’s War is in trouble, with only the hope of strong overseas sales standing between the film and a bath of red ink. Certainly this film’s opening does nothing for the reputation of actor Chris Hemsworth, who, as yet, has not been able to transfer his success as “Thor” into other film projects.
Third place went the comedy Barbershop: The Next Cut, which dropped 46.1% as it earned $10.8 million and brought its cumulative to $36 million. So far the third Barbershop film appears to be holding well, and it could hang around for some time, but Disney’s Zootopia remains this season’s prime exemplar of “legs” as it dipped just 18.8% in its eighth weekend in theaters, earning $6.6 million and bringing its domestic total to $316.4 million. Overseas, Zootopia has earned $590.7 million, giving it a worldwide total of $907 million, which means that a $1 billion haul remains a possibility.
Melissa McCarthy’s R-rated comedy The Boss rounds out the top five. The Boss dropped just 39% as it earned $6.1 million to bring its 17-day total to $49.5 million. Staying this high on the charts could be problematic however given the movie’s low per-venue average ($1801), which should make the film vulnerable to losing screens over the next few weeks.
And then there is the strange case of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which also dropped 39% as it earned $5.5 million to bring its domestic total to $319.5, which is higher than that of the original Iron Man ($318 million), though certainly not so if inflation is taken into account. After a debut that was everything that Warner Bros. could have asked for (and a tangible demonstration that audiences are very interested in seeing these DC Comics characters in action), came a sharp drop-off as word-of-mouth caused a major drop in momentum. Don’t be fooled by the small (39%) drop, BvS could manage only $1,800 per venue, and the film will lose more screens this week and face direct competition when Captain America: Civil War debuts in 10 days.
Mention should be made of Compadres, the Mexican/American action comedy about a disgruntled Mexican cop (Omar Chaparro) who has to join forces with a teenage hacker in order to track down the criminals who killed his wife. Debuting in just 368 theaters, Compadres earned $1.4 million, a reminder of the importance of the Hispanic audience in driving North American box office numbers.
Another film in limited release, Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram for the King, which stars Tom Hanks and is based on the novel by David Eggers, earned $1.2 million from 401 theaters, a far better showing than that of fellow art movie, Elvis and Nixon, which earned just $456,793 from 381 theaters.
Be sure to check back here next week when a number of new films debut including the video game-based computer-animated science fiction anime Rachet & Clank, the Gary (Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve) Marshall new ensemble comedy Mother’s Day starring Jennifer Anniston, Kate Hudson, and Julia Roberts, and the action comedy Keanu featuring Comedy Central’s Key & Peele.