Disney Rules The Box Office Again With Their Animated Hit ‘The Jungle Book’
After holding the top box office spot for three consecutive weeks last month with Zootopia, Disney struck gold again with its CGI remake of The Jungle Book. The film opened with an estimated $103.5 million at U.S. theaters, making it the third film this year, after Deadpool and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, that has topped $100+ million in its debut weekend.
The Jungle Book was also king of the international box office jungle, pulling in $136.1m abroad. Its global total is $291m, lead by China ($50.3m) followed by Russia ($14.2m) and the United Kingdom ($13.7m).
Directed by Jon Favreau (Elf, Iron Man), Jungle Book is almost entirely digitally-generated with the exception of Mowgli. It’s remarkable to think that a little over a decade ago, we were discussing the possibilities of filmmakers incorporating digital characters into live-action films, and today the technology has reached the point where live actors are being dropped into almost-entirely digital universes. This article, which is ironically published in a publication from the International Cinematographers Guild, provides a good argument for why The Jungle Book is as much an animated film as it is live-action.
Zootopia also continued to outperform expectations, adding $8.2m in its latest frame for a U.S. total of $307.5m. Combined with a $574.8m international haul, the film has grossed over $880m to date, making it the top-grossing release of 2016 to date.
Later this week, Zootopia will move ahead of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs to become the eighth-highest grossing animated feature of all-time. Here is how the current top ten looks:
- Frozen (Disney): $1.27 billion
- Minions (Illumination): 1.16 billion
- Toy Story 3 (Pixar): $1.06 billion
- The Lion King (Disney): $987.5 million
- Despicable Me 2 (Illumination): $970.8 million
- Finding Nemo (Pixar): $936.7 million
- Shrek 2 (DreamWorks): $919.8 million
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Blue Sky): $886.7 million
- Zootopia (Disney): $882.3 million
- Ice Age: Continental Drift (Blue Sky): $877.2 million
