The Huntsman: Winter’s War loses to The Jungle Book in the box office.
Without Kristen Stewart, Universal’s new movie The Huntsman: Winter’s War flopped in the U.S. box office earning only $20 million from nearly 4,000 theaters. To add insult to injury, Universal spent $115 million to make the movie. Internationally, Huntsman earned a total of $80.2 million for a total of $100.3 million in the box office worldwide.
Meanwhile, Disney’s The Jungle Book earned $500 million in the box office. The Jon-Favreau directed movie defied expectations in it’s second weekend, falling a mere 41% to $60.8 million. Oversear, Jungle Book earned another $96 million.
Disney’s The Jungle Book demonstrates the company’s domination in the box office. The movie studio’s decision to make classic cartoon movies and turn them into live-action thrillers has become an extremely smart decision in hindsight. This is probably explains why Universal’s Huntsman flopped in the box office. Universal put their money on Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt’s star power. But, studies have shown that movies with little diversity have consistently performed lower and lower in the box office. While, Disney’s Jungle Book embraced diversity by casting a non-white actor for the leading role.
In addition, movie reviews for Huntsman were terrible. For example, The Atlantic bashed the movie saying, “When people gripe about Hollywood’s reliance on sequels and cheap franchise cash-ins, this is the kind of movie they mean: no Grimm’s Fairy Tale, but a grim tale nonetheless.”
It’s worth pointing out that Chris Hemsworth acting career outside of Thor has not done well in the Box Office. His latest movie, In the Heart of the Sea, bombed in the box office. And the movie before that Blackhat, also flopped in the box office. Unfortunately for Hemsworth, his star power may be worthless as he is not able to sell movie tickets outside of Marvel movies.
Via THR
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