{"id":4414,"date":"2016-04-18T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T16:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/?p=4414"},"modified":"2016-04-18T14:33:11","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T18:33:11","slug":"disneys-the-jungle-book-roars-to-103-6-million-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/2016\/04\/disneys-the-jungle-book-roars-to-103-6-million-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney’s The Jungle Book Roars To $103.6 Million Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jungle-Book-1\"<\/em><\/p>\n

“Every studio executive dreams about the day they have a movie that plays to virtually all audiences irrespective of its rating, theme or target audience. ‘Jungle Book’ is the perfect realization of that dream,” says one box-office analyst.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Jungle Book <\/em>climbed to the top of the cinematic mountain, opening to a whopping $103.6 million domestically and $290,967,000 worldwide exceeding all expectations.<\/p>\n

Disney\u2019s live-action adventure demolished expectations to earn the second highest April opening in box office history, second only to last year\u2019s\u00a0Furious 7<\/em>\u00a0($147.2 million). A $100 million domestic opening is a pretty rare accomplishment for a PG-rated movie, and\u00a0The Jungle Book<\/em>\u00a0is only the second PG-rated Disney movie to do so. (Alice in Wonderland<\/em>opened to $116.1 million in 2010.)<\/p>\n

A good chunk of\u00a0The Jungle Book\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0success came from 3D and IMAX screens, earning an estimated $31 million domestically from 3D and $10.4 million domestically from IMAX. Globally,\u00a0The Jungle Book<\/em>\u00a0reeled in $20.4 million from IMAX screens, setting an IMAX record for the biggest PG-rated opening.<\/p>\n

There’s is a wonderful article in the New York Times which gives a rare glance into the \u00a0“savvy”marketing process of The Jungle Book – some call it “magical”!<\/p>\n

The article talks about some of the marketing strategies\u00a0used to move \u00a0the box office needle;<\/p>\n

Create an early social blast, buzz.<\/strong> Last August Director Jon\u00a0Favreau bounded onto a 7,800-seat arena at a Disney fan convention in Anaheim, Calif., and showed sneak-peek footage from his film. He hobnobbed with three \u201cJungle Book\u201d stars on stage, including Neel Sethi, who plays the man-cub Mowgli. Thousands of movie posters were handed out at a marketing cost of\u00a0$175 million.<\/p>\n

Broaden the demographic – not just for kids.\u00a0<\/strong>When animals talk in a movie, unless it\u2019s a comedy, older moviegoers tend to skip it.\u00a0Most of Mr. Favreau\u2019s animals are not cartoonish and cuddly , but Disney could not rely on trailers and TV spots to convey that message. So bloggers and entertainment news sites to hammer home a point: Mr. Favreau\u00a0used sophisticated filmmaking techniques<\/strong>\u00a0to create the animal characters.<\/p>\n

The Power of the Trailer as a marketing instrument<\/strong>: In part to make \u201cThe Jungle Book\u201d appeal to a finicky high school crowd \u2014 older siblings tend to influence younger brothers and sisters \u2014 \u00a0the first trailer was packed with scary moments (pouncing panther, snarling tiger, stampeding buffalo) while hiding the musical numbers and keeping Baloo\u2019s goofier moments to a minimum.<\/p>\n

Target a specific demographic.\u00a0<\/strong>Generally speaking, females\u00a0see Disney\u2019s magic castle logo on a trailer and are pulled closer. The opposite can be true with guys. So Disney aggressively and repeatedly pitched \u201cThe Jungle Book\u201d to male audiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Commercials on ESPN portrayed the movie as coming not from the studio that made \u201cCinderella\u201d but \u201cfrom the studio that brought you \u2018Pirates of the Caribbean.\u2019\u201d An extended 3-D trailer for \u201cThe Jungle Book\u201d was attached to \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens,\u201d which had an audience that was 58 percent male.<\/p>\n

Additionally,\u00a0\u00a0Disney rolled out an action-oriented trailer during the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Create an immersive world.\u00a0<\/strong>To emphasize the scope and scale of this movie, Disney introduced a mazelike Law of the Jungle website in partnership with the female-leaning Tumblr; ran special promos at IMAX theaters focusing on the snake Kaa; and created a touring virtual-reality experience and 360-degree Facebook video emphasizing the \u201cAvatar\u201d-like world of its jungle. This was all crafted to create an experience that would ultimately move\u00a0\u00a0moviegoers \u00a0to spend $3 to $5 more a ticket to see \u201cThe Jungle Book\u201d in 3-D, which can lift opening-weekend sales considerably.<\/p>\n

Utilize all \u00a0Disney promotion\u00a0channels and assets.\u00a0<\/strong>Aside from marketing on ESPN (mentioned earlier), various corners of the Disney empire also were called into play to promote \u201cThe Jungle Book.\u201d A New Year\u2019s Day stunt on the Disney Channel, for instance, was used to portray the film as one of the year\u2019s first blockbuster offerings for families and children.<\/p>\n

But the synergistic heavy lifting was done by Disney theme parks. During the jam-packed spring break weeks, park theaters in Florida and California offered sneak-peek footage of the movie, with Mr. Favreau providing introductions.<\/p>\n

The many (many) theme park stores that sell Disney merchandise had \u201cJungle Book\u201d sections. And Disney built photogenic \u201cJungle Book\u201d sand sculptures at its Animal Kingdom and Epcot parks in Florida.<\/p>\n

Read the full New York Times story<\/em>\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Every studio executive dreams about the day they have a movie that plays to virtually all audiences irrespective of its rating, theme or target audience. ‘Jungle Book’ is the perfect realization of that dream,” says one box-office analyst. The Jungle Book climbed to the top of the cinematic mountain, opening to a whopping $103.6 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-current-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4414"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4421,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4414\/revisions\/4421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archimediastudios.com\/corporate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}