The Walt Disney Company will take the top spot at the worldwide box office this weekend, knocking off Space Jam: A New Legacy in a resounding way. The Space Jam movie, which may turn out to be the biggest box office bomb in the history of cinema (potential $200 million loss for Warner Bros), only earned a paltry $4.3 million this weekend, while Disney’s new Jungle Cruise film will set sail for $61.8 million in its opening weekend.
Jungle Cruise, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt, does not enter the marketplace without real world drama. According to various news outlets, lead actress Blunt is considering joining Scarlett Johansson in suing The Walt Disney Company for allegedly evading contractual pay by placing the movie on Disney+ Premiere Access — a service that generates income separate from profit-sharing models in the actress’ contract. Considering the film’s Disney+ revenue, the movie will rake in almost $100 million for the weekend in total, but that is separate from the official box office the world has been using for decades. There’s also no guarantee The Walt Disney Company will release future streaming statistics for the movie, and that makes the opening weekend pizazz of big streaming numbers virtually useless in determining actual movie success or failure.
Emily Blunt may join Scarlett Johansson and Emma Stone in suing Disney over their post-pandemic strategy of simultaneously releasing movies in both the box office and on Disney+. If the potential lawsuits are not settled out of court, they could potentially bring to public much of Disney+ numbers and statistics not currently visible to industry analysts outside the House of Mouse.
While Jungle Cruise’s numbers are better than expected, they’re still reflective of a film likely to lose money. Black Widow may end up with a $100 million loss overall, and Jungle Cruise will need to generate revenue after tax and theater costs of approximately $300 million for a $250 million production and $50 million (low estimate) marketing campaign. If Jungle Cruise retains 65% of its total box office revenue, that means it has made about $70 million actual income for The Walt Disney Company this weekend. That would represent less than a quarter of the necessary moneys needed for a profit.
As That Park Place author WDW Pro covered on July 31st, these film results seem unsustainable. Between Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, The Walt Disney Company may lose nearly $200 million when combined. That’s still less than Space Jam is losing all by itself, but it’s still phenomenal amounts of negative, to the point that this summer is seeing multiple “blockbusters” take top ten slots for biggest losing films in the history of cinema.
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