Jungle Cruise has been a pleasant surprise in the box office landscape since its release, performing decently in theaters and finding itself as one of Disney’s first releases to run for a month-long theatrical release before heading to streaming. Yet is the announced sequel entirely indicative of blinding success, or merely a Disney hype-train for their only possible new franchise of the last few decades? We asked entertainment attorney Brandon Blake to dive into some of the deeper implications of the announcement this week.
Brandon Blake- The Entertainment Lawyer
Having passed $100M at the domestic box office, $30M of that on opening weekend, and $187M worldwide, by old standards this would never have been a ‘well-performing movie, especially not with its $200M price tag. Of course, the market that would have talked down this performance no longer exists, and Jungle Cruise has managed a solid performance for the post-pandemic box office, good reviews, and has kept people coming through theater doors after opening weekend. All the same, it doesn’t have the benchmarks of a top performer, barely returning costs.
We only currently have Cruella as a comparison. To earn its promised sequel, Cruella turned in $225M on a $100M budget even without the VOD figures we don’t have access to a noticeable performance improvement. Is Disney that confident in Jungle Cruise as a performing franchise than merely scraping back its money is enough to greenlight further installments? Or is this merely the House of Mouse leveraging the film for some positive publicity? It would not be the first time Disney ( and other production studios) have used the hype of a promised sequel to drive sales, even if the promise is then quietly forgotten over time.
The announcement certainly creates the illusion of certainty that hybrid releases can earn enough revenue to carry franchise opportunities. It also, of course, is possibly the only strong new franchise contender Disney has in its bag of tricks at the moment. Setting aside the MCU and Star Wars, Disney hasn’t had anything to hang a franchise hat on since National Treasure in 2004.
Mere speculation, of course. The announcement certainly creates the idea in moviegoer’s heads that Jungle Cruise was worth the investment. Whether or not ulterior motives also exist remains to be seen and may not even matter in the end.
