• Box Office

World Box Office July 26 – August 1, 2021

Disney’s Jungle Cruise sailed to the top of the domestic and international box office charts and docked with a worldwide tally of $68.1 million.

The fantasy adventure movie, starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, easily cruised to number one in the North American market with $34.18 million. Based on the popular ride which opened in 1955 in Disneyland, Jungle Cruise banked on the box office appeal of Johnson, a top draw all these years, and Blunt, whose two A Quiet Place films are big hits.

The movie directed by Jaume Collet-Serra also collected $30 million-plus in worldwide streaming earnings, according to Disney, which normally doesn’t disclose movies’ Disney Plus revenues. The only other time that the studio revealed streaming figures was for Black Widow.

The well-reviewed The Green Knight jousted its way to second place with $6.78 million. Featuring Dev Patel as Sir Gawain, the David Lowery-directed fantasy epic inspired by the 14th-century poem, Sir Galahad and the Green Knight, also features Alicia Vikander and Joel Edgerton.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Old ranked third with $6.76 million. Suffering a 60 % drop, Old – with a cast that includes Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, and Rufus Sewell – has a reported budget of $18 million. So its $30.61 million domestic revenues so far, plus its offshore earnings, should still be good news.

Also continuing to slide drastically was Black Widow, which took the fourth spot with $6.43 million. The 45 % fall (from the previous weekend ) of the 24th Marvel Cinematic Universe film, with Scarlett Johansson in the title role, was considered by box office analysts as the steepest fourth-weekend drop for a Disney/MCU release.

Stillwater, for which Matt Damon received a five-minute standing ovation when it premiered in the recent Cannes Film Festival, managed to land only in the fifth spot. Tom McCarthy’s crime drama, narrating how an oil rig worker (Damon) sets out to France to help prove his daughter’s (Abigail Breslin) innocence, mustered $5.12 million.

Completing the rest of the top ten, in rank order, were Malcolm D. Lee’s Space Jam: A New Legacy ($4.27 million), Robert Schwentke’s Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins ($4 million), Justin Lin’s F9 ($2.65 million), Adam Robitel’s Escape Room: Tournament of Champions ($2.2 million) and Tom McGrath’s The Boss Baby: Family Business ($1.3 million).

Overseas, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, released earlier than in the United States and Canada, rounded up $7 million. The standalone sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad, featuring Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Idris Elba (Bloodsport), John Cena (Peacemaker), Joel Kinnaman (Colonel Rick Flag), and Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), performed strongly in five offshore territories.

But Jungle Cruise also lorded over the international box office scene with $27.6 million. Following behind were Space Jam 2 ($8.3 million), F9 ($8.05 million for an overseas total take of $473.2 million so far), and Old ($7.52 million).

In the streaming race, Manifest, NBC’s supernatural drama series, which was canceled after three seasons, continues to find new life on Netflix. The show about a mysterious plane that reappears after missing for more than five years is number one in Nielsen’s top 10 SVOD chart.

Netflix again dominated the chart (listed according to rank), for the week of June 28 to July 4, except as indicated: Manifest, The Tomorrow War (Amazon), Luca (Disney Plus), Loki (Disney Plus), Cocomelon, Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy, The Ice Road, Downton Abbey and Bosch (Amazon).