It’s another massive hit for Dwayne Johnson, ‘The Rock.’
Despite growing concerns over the delta variant, “Jungle Cruise” was able to draw moviegoers out to theaters, leading the opening weekend North American box office.
The Disney film starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt exceeded expectations by drawing in more than $34.1 million over the weekend. The movie was estimated to open with around $25 million to $30 million domestically, however, it was outpacing projections despite the surge in the coronavirus cases.
Globally, “Jungle Cruise” brought in a total of $90 million, including $27.6 million in the international box office and more than $30 million from Disney Plus.
“In this pandemic-challenged market place, it overperformed,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “It didn’t really seem like the streaming component hurt the box office in any significant way. The movie theater is still showing its resilience and appeal to moviegoers despite the fact that there’s so much news everyday, most of it not moving in the right direction, in terms of the pandemic.”
The movie’s release comes as the theme park announced changes in the famous rise by the same name. The theme park announced changes and was undergoing extensive refurbishment to address cultural sensitivity issues.
“Continuing a tradition that Walt Disney started more than six decades ago when he first enhanced the Jungle Cruise, the new creative concept for our river’s journey will be original to Walt Disney Imagineering, just like the attraction itself,” Disney said in a statement at the time.