Disney’s “The Jungle Book” had a stellar start at the box office, grossing $4.2 million in its Thursday previews.
The studio’s “Maleficent” grossed the same amount of money when it debuted in 2014. It eventually hit $69.4 million on its opening weekend. And 2015’s “Cinderella” opened to $2.3 million and grossed a first-weekend total of $67.9 million.
With a budget of $175 million, analysts are projecting a $70 million to $80 million opening weekend for the live-action remake, although the studio is being more conservative and is estimating a debut in the mid-to-high-$60 million range.
Should the Jon Favreau-directed movie hit the $80 million mark, it will surpass Disney’s most recent success of “Zootopia,” which earned $1.7 million on its first Thursday in March before it grossed $75.1 million domestically over its three-day opening weekend. “The Jungle Book” would also then be the third-best opener of the year, behind “Batman v Superman” at $166 million and “Deadpool” at $132.4 million.
“The Jungle Book” is based on Rudyard Kipling’s stories about Mowgli, an abandoned boy who gets raised by wolves and a black panther named Bagheera. While Disney released an animated version in 1967, the 2016 film stars Bill Murray as Baloo, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha and newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli.
The film was also ruling Fandango’s advanced ticket sales on Thursday, scoring 94 out of 100 points on the Fanticipation buzz meter. It is outpacing “Cinderella,” “Maleficent” and “Oz: the Great and Powerful” in presales.
“The Jungle Book” currently holds a score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Disney’s best-reviewed live-action adaptation of an animated film.
“Barbershop: The Next Cut” from MGM, New Line and Warner Bros. grossed $735,000 in Thursday previews.
Analysts are projecting a gross in the low-to-mid-$20 million range for the third film in the “Barbershop” franchise. The original 2002 film debuted to $20.6 million, and its 2004 sequel opened with $24.2 million.
Lionsgate’s “Criminal,” starring Kevin Costner, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, is looking at a $7 million to $9 million weekend, when it opens in 2,600 locations.
Receiving a score of 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the film is about a dead CIA operative’s memories, secrets and skills that are implanted into a death-row inmate in order to stop a diabolical plot — a mission that the operative couldn’t complete.
'The Jungle Book' and 16 Other Astonishing CGI-Fueled Movies (Photos)
Though technically stretching the definition of "live action," Disney's new "Jungle Book" film stars a real human boy as Mowgli and a whole bunch of computer generated talking animals that you probably wouldn't realize were not real if nobody told you.
"Ex Machina" won the Oscar for visual effects on a $15 million budget. I mean, come on.
We all know about "Avatar," the recently dethroned box office king which had CGI cat people and a CGI jungle that looked so real that some people got depressed because they would never actually be able to go there.
I found out that the tiger in "Life of Pi" was a computer creation after I watched the movie. I'm still not quite sure I believe it.
Obviously we all inherently knew that a child wearing an elderly version of Brad Pitt's face in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was not a real thing. But good lord.
Director Peter Jackson and actor Andy Serkis revolutionized performance capture in film with Gollum in the latter two "Lord of the Rings" movies. Even more than a decade later Gollum is still one of the best digital performances we've seen.
It might look unremarkable now, but in 1999 and for several years after, that first time we saw "bullet time" in "The Matrix" was a shocking thing.
"The Revenant" may be a tough movie to sit through, but it's hard not to admire the extended sequence in which Leonardo DiCaprio is mauled by a CGI bear.
Andy Serkis lent his talents to the role of Caesar (pictured) in the new "Planet of the Apes" series.
Another lowish-budget affair for something with this level of visual effects, "District 9" utilized a sort of digital prosthetic to create the prawn aliens rather than practical makeup.
The first two "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels were covered in CGI, but no part of them was more impressive than Davey Jones and his crew.
Even today the dinos in "Jurassic Park" look pretty great. For 1993, they're mindshattering.
It's basically impossible to convincingly pull off a metallic silver look with computer effects, and "Terminator 2" didn't quite do it. But that film's T-1000 remains one of the best attempts we've seen even after 25 years.
The "Transformers" demonstrate just how much we take ridiculously good CGI for granted these days. It's fun to scoff at the dumbness and Michael Bay's rather over-the-top sensibilities. But these robots still deserve praise for how shockingly awesome they look.
Dishonorable mention: Not all astonishing CGI is astonishing in the good way. Anakin surfing on the back of this shaak is one of those other ones that we can never forget no matter how hard we try.
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Disney’s live-action ”Jungle Book“ film is one of many movies in the past couple of decades to blow us away with shocking VFX work
Though technically stretching the definition of "live action," Disney's new "Jungle Book" film stars a real human boy as Mowgli and a whole bunch of computer generated talking animals that you probably wouldn't realize were not real if nobody told you.
