Jon Favreau’s live action and CGI adaptation of Rudyard Kiplings “The Jungle Book” has roared it’s way to the top of the US box office, taking in an estimated $103.6m (£73.1m) in its opening weekend, 4 times more than its nearest competitor!
This makes it the second most successful April opening weekend ever, behind only 2015’s Furious 7. Furthermore, The Jungle Book made another $136.1m (£96m) outside of the US and Canada this weekend, adding to the success Disney has found in taking its animated classics and giving them live action remakes, like they have previously done with Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
The film introduces Neel Sethi, who stars as Mowgli, and rarely has an actor made their big screen debut along such an impressive cast, with the likes of Scarlett Johanson, Bill Murray, Sir Ben Kingsley, Christopher Walken and Idris Elba lending their voice to the film.
The film is the first of two live action Jungle Book remakes, with the Andy Serkis directed Jungle Book following the Jon Favreau version in two years time (the film will premier in October 2018). Serkis’s film also boasts an impressive cast, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Bale and Freida Pinto voicing characters, but the Favreau and Disney version has the benefit of being the first past the post, and could hurt Andy Serkis’s chances of finding similar success when his own version is released.
Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice falls to 4th place at the US Box Office, but a re-release featuring a slightly extended cut of the movie is rumoured in hopes to boost the films earnings, and push its worldwide gross across the 1 billion dollar barrier. The film has so far taken in over 800 million, but interest has now faded and it only made an additional 8 million dollars in the US over the weekend. With rumours that the films marketing budget was so vast that the studio isn’t making much of a profit on 800 million, an R rated extended edition with a theatrical release could give it that extra boost!
Zootopia falls to 5th place at the US Box office, whilst Barbershop: The Next Cut and The Boss come in at number 2 and 3, respectively.
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