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Excellent word-of-mouth and reviews kept Disney’s family-friendly live-action ‘The Jungle Book’ in the #1 spot for a second week, dropping just 41% week-over-week, the 15th best second weekend on record and the best f 2016.  ‘The Jungle Book’ took in an additional $60.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $191.5M ($528.5M globally).

Universal’s ‘The Huntsman: Winter’s War’ was not expected to compare to 2012’s ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ and it didn’t.  The first film did reasonably well, but wasn’t a runaway smash by any means.  Universal ditched original director Rupert Sanders and star Kristen Stewart and instead chose to focus on Chris Hemsworth’s Huntsman and introduced Emily Blunt as an Elsa-esque ice queen, Jessica Chastain as Hemsworth’s love interest.  Charlize Theron’s glam Queen Ravena returned for a glorified bit part.  ‘The Huntsman’ was made for a fraction of what ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ and similarly only took in a fraction of what the first film did on its opening weekend, $20.1M versus $56.2M.

All things considered, that doesn’t make this a flop, since Universal didn’t put that much money into it (about $115M) and didn’t expect it to be a massive hit.  Then again, using that logic, why make it at all?  It’s not like the first movie was a beloved hit, dying for a follow-up.  Oh well… as they say, “That happened.”

As for the rest of the Top Five, not much changed:

  1. The Jungle Book (Disney) – $60.8M
  2. The Huntsman: Winter’s War (Universal) – $20.1M
  3. Barbershop: The Next Cut (Warner Brothers) – $10.8M
  4. Zootopia (Disney) – $6.6M
  5. The Boss (Universal) – $6.1M

Perhaps the biggest development is that ‘Batman V Superman’ has dropped out of the Top Five a month into its release.  This movie broke records with its opening and has raked in $319.5M domestically, so it’s hardly a flop, but considering this film’s importance to Warner Brothers’ output for at least the next five years, it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Next week sees a few releases that should do okay, but most likely aren’t going to be blockbusters: Key and Peele’s ‘Keanu’; the star-studded ‘Mother’s Day’; and the animated game adaptation ‘Ratchet & Clank’.  None are likely to take the #1 spot, but may surface in the Top Five.  Then of course, the week after sees the release of ‘Captain America: Civil War’ which is already outpacing previous Marvel movies in pre-sales.

Check back to see how things pan out!

Source: Deadline