'The Jungle Book' is king of the box office with $103.6 million opening
Everything's coming up Disney.
The Jungle Book swings in for a dominant first-place finish in the weekly box office tussle, with an estimated $103.6 million banked from Friday to Sunday.
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The live-action remake has drawn raves from across the critical spectrum. It also boasts a voice cast of proven crowd-pleasers -- including Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o, Scarlett Johansson, Ben Kingsley and Christopher Walken -- that plays well outside the expected family-friendly crowd.
While it's not the biggest April opening in Hollywood history -- Furious 7 owns that record, with $147.2 million -- The Jungle Book's performance is good enough for second place. It's also a hit overseas, with around $187 million earned abroad over its first two weeks.
Fellow box office newcomer Barbershop: The Next Cut claims an easy #2 win, with an estimated $20.2 million weekend. Unless Sunday sales pick up, this 12-years-later follow-up will clock the lowest Barbershop opening to date (unless you count the 2005 spin-off, Beauty Shop).
Series-low or not, Barbershop's weekend is still more than strong enough to climb past last week's winner, The Boss. The comedy was star Melissa McCarthy's third #1 opening to date, but a critical drubbing and abysmal "C+" CinemaScore fueled what's shaping up to be a 60% slide into the second weekend's estimated $10.2 million take.
The Boss and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are in a neck-and-neck race for mediocrity this week. The DC Comics blockbuster is eyeing an estimated $9 million weekend, which would be a 61.5% dip from last weekend's $23.4 million.
In terms of box office rankings, Boss and BvS are close enough that #3 could fall to anyone by Monday morning. But if it wasn't clear last week, it is now: BvS -- the movie on which Warner Bros. pinned its hopes for competing with the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- is irrelevant at the box office after less than a month in theaters.
Finally, in yet another win for Disney, seventh weekend veteran Zootopia looks to have scratched out enough -- an estimated $8.2 million in the #5 spot -- to climb past $300 million at the domestic box office. With more than $560 million already generated overseas, Zootopia could be Disney's tenth billion dollar movie of all time by the year's end.
Like we said at the start: Everything's coming up Disney.
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Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
