Disney Pulls ‘Jungle Cruise’ Into Weekend Port With $91.8M In Global B.O. & Disney+ Premier Spend - Deadline

Sunday AM Final: Jungle Cruise kept its ship together at the domestic box office over the weekend, and actually saw an uptick in Friday-to-Saturday grosses (when you back out Thursday previews of $2.7M) of +16% which puts the adventure film at $34.2M, an opening that’s not far from Dwayne Johnson’s pre-pandemic event film Rampage ($35.7M), and the biggest family film start during the pandemic to date. All in, add $27.6M in overseas box office and $30M+ in Disney+ Premier global spend and Jungle Cruise counts a first weekend’s worth of revenues of $91.8M. Similar to Black Widow, the bulk of Disney+ Premier spend, I understand, is coming from the U.S.

With great word of mouth and audience exits, we’ve exceeded our own and industry expectations.” Jungle Cruise was expected to open to $25M domestic; Deadline heard that global theatrical estimates at $65M.

Again, when we see such holds and successes in the face of dynamic windows, the question continually begged is how much more could Jungle Cruise have made this weekend at the domestic B.O.

without Disney+ Premier blocking its path.

A $91.8M combined global theatrical and PVOD start are not the ingredients to profit off a tentpole with excellent audience exits which cost an estimated $362M in negative cost, distribution and marketing expenses.

On the other hand, a sign that the offshore markets still aren’t back for Jungle Cruise: Rampage posted a $114.1M an international B.O.

first weekend ($55M came from China then, which wasn’t in the mix for Jungle Cruise; the remaining balance on the giant ape movie debuted to $59.1M).  Disney is all about global day-and-date launches which are hampered here because of territory closures and capacity restrictions, which is why the studio continues to argue their Disney+ Premier day-and-date theatrical model.

We don’t know yet which future movies on the Disney theatrical slate will commit to the experimental model.

Despite being sued by Scarlett Johansson over crushing the theatrical and PVOD window on Black Widow, Disney will defend that by putting Jungle Cruise on its streaming service for $29.99 (versus $19.99 or lower), they’re trying to put a high price point so that they’re not directly competing with movie theater ticket prices which average around $10-$15 each.

Counter that with the fact that a Disney+ Premier purchase for Jungle Cruise is the better bargain for a family of four.

Some have asked me why I’m comping Jungle Cruise to Rampage, a pre-pandemic title: Because in regards to pure domestic box office, we need to see where we are versus normal standards; it’s an indicator of whether we are in a state of recovery or not.

Meanwhile, Black Widow‘s weekend 4 at the box office is the lowest fourth weekend for a Disney-released Marvel title ever at $6.4M.

Marketing reignited in May with a new trailer, poster, and announcement of dual theatrical and Disney+ Premier Access release on July 30, exclusively revealed on Good Morning America.

In the face of a pandemic, Johnson and Blunt bravely appeared at the Disneyland premiere for the film and even took a surprise ride on the Jungle Cruise much to the delight of fans (see below).

Social media analytics corp RelishMix reports that that pic’s social media was massive “connecting Disneyland 29.7M into the mix along with Disney Studios 62.2M, Disney+ 11.8M, Disney Channel 21.9M for a total social media universe of 559.8M total which is exceptional in relation to family live-action comps.

The Rock’s social media pull across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter counts 333.8M which according to RelishMix reps 59% of the entire reach metric for Jungle Cruise along with the action star’s YouTube channel, with 5.6M subs, which dropped trailers including the No.

That’s a better-than-expected opening for the Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt film, and bests the former’s pre-pandemic debut of Skyscraper ($24.9M) and isn’t too far from the start of his 2018 Rampage ($35.7M). Jungle Cruise is also outstripping the theatrical 3-day of family pic Cruella ($21.5M) (granted, it was a largely female skewing title), which was also available in homes on Disney+ Premier for $29.99.

How much more does Jungle Cruise make on Disney+ Premier over the weekend (at a $29.99 price).

Despite being sued by Scarlett Johansson over their shake-up of the distribution model on Black Widow, I’m sure Disney is still unapologetic about sticking to a dynamic window here on Jungle Cruise in the face of the delta variant.

While the overall weekend box office remains low with an estimated $73.2M from all titles – though up 3% from last weekend, we’ll never know what a full box office recovery looks like, even in the face of the pandemic, until all this day-and-date experimenting ceases.

Friday afternoon update revised: While the town is getting used to projecting Warner Bros.’ day-and-date theatrical and streaming numbers, Disney’s throwing a bit of a curveball: Remember, many box office analysts didn’t see the Friday-to-Saturday 41% collapse of Black Widow coming.

Warner’s theatrical titles in the home are free to HBO Max subscribers, whereas Disney+ subs have to pay an extra $29.99 to see Jungle Cruise.

Comparing to another Disney family film that’s on a dynamic window, Jungle Cruise‘s Friday is ahead of Cruella‘s first day of $7.7M4

Friday AM update: Disney is reporting $2.7M for its Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt family adventure movie Jungle Cruise from shows that began at 7PM.

The film, which was delayed due to the pandemic, is also hitting Disney+ Premier at $29.99 today.

In the wake of Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney for breach of contract on its failure to deliver an exclusive wide theatrical release on Black Widow, I hear that the Dwayne Johnson and his Seven Bucks camp have no intention of battling Disney for any anticipated loss of dollars on this day-and-date release on the Jaume Collet-Serra-directed movie; the action star’s camp was in lock-step with the Mouse House when the announcement was made to deliver the pic to a global audience everywhere at a time when certain offshore theatrical markets (like Southeast Asia) are offline due to Covid.

In regards to pandemic box office numbers, and in particular Disney+ Premier-box office releases, Jungle Cruise bested the Thursday night of Cruella which did $1.4M.

Disney is expected to report first weekend global PVOD numbers on Jungle Cruise on Sunday AM. Black Widow‘s first weekend on Disney+ Premier was $60M.

Add in $158M WW theatrical debut, and the first weekend global B.O.

and Disney PVOD take on that film was $218M.