Weekend Estimates: Jungle Book Brushes Off Huntsman

April 24, 2016

The Jungle Book

What in theory should have been a battle at the box office has turned into a rout this weekend, with The Jungle Book set to earn $60 million, according to Disney’s Sunday morning estimate, and The Huntsman: Winter’s War limping into second place with $20.1 million, per Universal.

Jungle Book will end the weekend with $191.5 million in the bank domestically, and its second weekend is the best of 2016 so far (and 15th-best of all time), beating the $56 million earned by Deadpool on its second outing. It’s more than $45 million behind Deadpool at this point in its run, so it has a lot of ground to make up, but it should cruise past $300 million, and might have a shot at becoming the top-grossing film of the year, if only very briefly before almost certainly being overtaken by Captain America: Civil War.

The Huntsman has much more modest goals in mind at this point. It will at least surpass its $115 million production budget at the worldwide box office. In fact, it has very nearly done so already, with $80.2 million internationally and $100.3 million globally so far. That’ll still leave the film in a deep financial hole, and it will get nowhere near the $400 million global haul enjoyed by Snow White and the Huntsman.

This weekend in general is a tale of soft openings. Three films opening in around 400 theaters are all underperforming to some degree. Compadres is doing best with $1.35 million from 368 theaters for an average of $3,668 per location. A Hologram for the King will earn about $1.2 million from 401 venues for an average of $3,000 or so. Last, and unfortunately least, Elvis & Nixon is set for $456,793 from 381, according to Bleecker Street.

The best-performing new limited release this weekend is How to Let Go of the World and Love All Things Climate Can’t Change. The unwieldy-titled documentary, released to coincide with Earth Day, will earn about $6,750 over the weekend and will have picked up $13,775 since its release on Wednesday.

- Weekend estimates

- The Jungle Book comparisons
- The Huntsman: Winter’s War comparisons
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comparisons

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Deadpool, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, The Jungle Book, A Hologram for the King, Elvis & Nixon, Compadres, How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change