Jungle Book makes rivals look tame

Neel Sethi stars as Mowgli and Lupita Nyong’o provides the voice of the wolf Raksha in Disney’s The Jungle Book. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $103.3 million.
Neel Sethi stars as Mowgli and Lupita Nyong’o provides the voice of the wolf Raksha in Disney’s The Jungle Book. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $103.3 million.

LOS ANGELES -- When Disney takes one of its classic animated adventures and creates a modern, live-action version, the result is usually box-office gold. With The Jungle Book, the trend continues.

Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and featuring a cast of celebrity voices including Bill Murray, Idris Elba and Lupita Nyong'o, the film grossed about $103.3 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters on its opening weekend, shattering the highest analyst projections of $80 million as well as the studio's more modest estimates of just $65 million. It's the second largest April opening on record, behind last year's Furious 7, and the highest April opening for a PG-rated release, above 2011's Hop.

"We are ecstatic about where we're starting and what it means for the future," said Dave Hollis, the studio's distribution chief. "When you combine really high-quality filmmaking and the reception you hoped for from critics and consumers enjoying it, the momentum started to snowball."

But The Jungle Book, based on Rudyard Kipling's 19th-century collection of stories and Disney's swinging animated musical from 1967, didn't come cheaply, costing an estimated $175 million to produce.

As for the week's other new releases, Warner Bros.' Barbershop: The Next Cut had a solid opening, while Lionsgate's Criminal struggled.

The Next Cut landed in second place with $20.2 million.

The picture is the third in the Barbershop franchise, the last of which, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, opened 12 years ago. The original opened in 2002. The story line follows Calvin, played by Ice Cube, running the barbershop he inherited from his father, and unites previous cast members Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, Anthony Anderson and Sean Patrick Thomas with new recruits Common, Nicki Minaj and Regina Hall.

Comedy sequels are often gambles for studios, but The Next Cut received favorable reviews from audiences and critics alike. Moviegoers gave it an A-minus CinemaScore, while 92 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics rated it positively.

As for Criminal, the action-suspense film starring Kevin Costner landed in sixth place with about $5.8 million, below its $9 million projections.

Universal Pictures' The Boss landed in third place in its second week. The comedy starring Melissa McCarthy added about $10 million to its box-office-topping debut for a domestic gross to date of about $40 million.

In fourth place was Warner Bros.' poorly reviewed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In its fourth week, it pulled in about $9 million. This brings its gross to date to $311.3 million in North America.

Disney's Zootopia rounded out the top five with about $8 million. This brings the animated picture's cumulative North American gross to about $307.4 million.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:

  1. The Jungle Book, Disney, $103,261,464, 4,028 locations, $25,636 average, $103,261,464, one week.
  2. Barbershop: The Next Cut, Warner Bros., $20,242,415, 2,661 locations, $7,607 average, $20,242,415, one week.
  3. The Boss, Universal, $9,958,855, 3,495 locations, $2,849 average, $40,140,765, two weeks.
  4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros., $9,028,356, 3,505 locations, $2,576 average, $311,330,086, four weeks.
  5. Zootopia, Disney, $8,142,641, 3,209 locations, $2,537 average, $307,386,397, seven weeks.
  6. Criminal, Lionsgate, $5,767,278, 2,683 locations, $2,150 average, $5,767,278, one week.
  7. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Universal, $3,258,720, 2,297 locations, $1,419 average, $52,094,210, four weeks.
  8. Miracles From Heaven, Sony, $1,938,766, 2,082 locations, $931 average, $56,969,578, five weeks.
  9. God's Not Dead 2, Pure Flix, $1,718,304, 1,585 locations, $1,084 average, $16,980,978, three weeks.
  10. Eye in the Sky, Bleecker Street, $1,553,083, 891 locations, $1,743 average, $13,113,068, six weeks.
  11. Met Opera: Roberto Devereux, Fathom Events, $1,500,000, 900 locations, $1,667 average, $1,500,000, one week.
  12. Hardcore Henry, STX Entertainment, $1,445,326, 3,015 locations, $479 average, $8,117,998, two weeks.
  13. The Divergent Series: Allegiant - Part 1, Lionsgate, $1,370,630, 1,484 locations, $924 average, $64,011,791, five weeks.
  14. Fan, Yash Raj Films, $1,357,212, 280 locations, $4,847 average, $1,357,212, one week.
  15. 10 Cloverfield Lane, Paramount, $1,058,603, 1,085 locations, $976 average, $69,793,284, six weeks.
  16. Deadpool, 20th Century Fox, $974,651, 791 locations, $1,232 average, $360,087,900, 10 weeks.
  17. Hello, My Name Is Doris, Roadside Attractions, $781,210, 650 locations, $1,202 average, $10,908,317, six weeks.
  18. Meet the Blacks, Freestyle Releasing, $489,765, 584 locations, $839 average, $8,367,099, three weeks.
  19. Midnight Special, Warner Bros., $431,251, 521 locations, $828 average, $3,116,328, five weeks.
  20. Everybody Wants Some!!, Paramount, $428,527, 134 locations, $3,198 average, $1,529,630, three weeks.

MovieStyle on 04/22/2016

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