The Jungle Book Review Round-Up: Best Disney Film in Years Could Struggle to Succeed At Box Office
"The Jungle Book" hits theaters this weekend with tremendous amounts of fanfare.
The remake to the original Disney animated film is the latest in the company's live action adaptations of its classic movies, generating tremendous amount of anticipation for a number of reasons. Boasting a number of major star actors in the iconic roles, the film the latest directed by Jon Favreau whose previous effort "Chef" was the definition of crowd-pleaser. Of course Favreau also directed the original "Iron Man," which remains the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date.
As "Batman V Superman" showed however, the staying power of franchises is rather unpredictable. While that film was tremendously hyped by fans and had a solid opening weekend, poor reviews and word of mouth led to a calamitous drop in the second weekend and sub-par numbers overall.
So how will "The Jungle Book" fare?
A Look At Other Disney Films' Reviews
Reviews thus far are as good as Disney could hope. To date, Disney has released four previous live-action movies including "Malificent," "Oz the Great and Powerful," "Alice in Wonderland" and "Cinderella." Of those films, "Cinderella" was the most beloved by critics, garnering a whopping 84 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomates. The other three films barely got critical approval with "Oz" only generating 59 percent positive reviews.
Strong Reviews for "Jungle Book"
"The Jungle Book" has a 93 percent approval rating thus far with the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes stating "As lovely to behold as it is engrossing to watch, The Jungle Book is the rare remake that actually improves upon its predecessors -- all while setting a new standard for CGI."
Kate Taylor of Globe and Mail adds that the film's tone is far more mature and that it is "a visually stunning and highly dramatic movie that pays only brief homage to the music of its predecessor and whose threatening characters and scary moments would surely have given Walt the heebie-jeebies."
Maricia Estrella of Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes a bit about the 3D, calling it "one of the few films in which the 3D enhancement is justified. Each scene captures the essence of each animal so vividly that children in the audience were reaching out to the screen to try to 'touch' the fur."
Not everyone is in love however with Sam C. Mac of Slant Magazine ultimately calling the film unoriginal. "Jon Favreau draws heavily on his film's animated predecessor for plot, characterizations, songs, and set pieces, but doesn't know how to fit these familiar elements into his own coherent vision," writes Mac.
Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly points out that the tone of the film is "an awkward mix of savage jungle naturalism and cuddly animal antics, and it only confuses things further when the filmmakers throw in a couple of songs from the original movie."
As of this writing, only 10 reviews have been negative with over 100 praising the movie.
This points toward a successful box office overall.
Past Box Office for Disney Live Action Adaptations
Despite some poor reviews, "Maleficent," "Oz the Great and Powerful" and "Alice in Wonderland" have been solid box office successes. "Maleficent" cranked out $241 million in domestic gross on a $180 million budget; worldwide that number grew to $758 million.
"Alice in Wonderland" brought in over $334 million in the US on a $200 million budget and raked in over $1 billion worldwide. "Oz" was the weakest showing getting a domestic gross of $234 million despite a $215 million budget. Worldwide that number was just under $500 million.
"Cinderella," the best reviewed of the bunch brought in $201 million domestically and $542 million worldwide on a $95 million budget. It was also the second-longest of those films; "Oz" was the longest.
"The Jungle Book" clocks in at under two hours, bringing it in close proximity to the length of "Cinderella" and "Alice in Wonderland" so that should not hinder the amount of times the film can be exhibited daily at cinemas.
So how will the film do?
Box Office Predictions
BoxOffice.com acknowledges the power of reviews and strong pre-sales for the film. Given the solid performance of previous Disney efforts, this should bring in at least $200 million. However, "The Jungle Book" does not have the brand name of any of the other films. Most of its stars are also hidden behind CGI characters, giving the film less of a recognizable face for audiences to gravitate towards. The other big elephant in the room is the upcoming competition from "The Huntsman" and "Captain America: Civil War" which could clip its potential numbers down quickly.
This could very well be Disney's first "flop" in the Live-Action series, but the films solid reviews do promise to give it a solid chance at success.
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!