Hitting Screens, Week of April 25
The Jungle Book continues to dominate the box office with Deadline Hollywood predicting that the juggernaut will continue this weekend. Entertainment Weekly marvels that it has already earned “a whopping $103.6 million domestically and $240 million worldwide” and has “demolished expectations to earn the second highest April opening in box office history, second only to last year’s Furious 7.”
Good thing; a sequel was announced even before the movie was released.
We have reported on the tie-ins but there are other books timed to the movie including a new illustrated complete edition of Kipling’s tales, The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Minalima Ltd. (HC/Harper Design).
If the excitement makes you wonder about that other Jungle Book adaptation in the works from Warner Bros., you are not alone. Entertainment Weekly writes about the rivalry and likely differences, the chief one being that first-time director Andy Serkis has said his movie will be “a lot darker” than the Disney version.
Variety reports the release date for the Warner Bros. edition has recently been pushed forward to 2018, shifting from Oct. 2017, to allow for more separation from the Disney hit.
Deadline reports, given the extra time the studio now has, that Oscar-winning Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron has been bought on board to “give notes on the project and see if there are ways … to improve the picture.” Cuaron is just one more big name on the project. Stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Matthew Rhys are all part of the film and Andy Serkis (who perfect performance-capture technique play Gollum in Lord of the Rings) is playing Baloo as well as directing and producing.
Den of Geek reports the studio has changed the name as well, changing it from Jungle Book:Origins to simply The Jungle Book, a move that will surely cause confusion as Disney powers ahead with a planned sequel, The Jungle Book 2.
Also of note is the 4/24 Sunday premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Rolling Stone offers 11 questions they have about the show, which serves as a timely catch-up to where things stand.
Two new adaptations open in theaters next week, one based on a book and the other on a video game (with book tie-ins).
Starring Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Toby Jones, The Man Who Knew Infinity opens April 29th. It is based on Robert Kanigel’s 1991 book of the same title, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a New York Times Book Review‘s Notable Books of the Year.
A new tie-in edition is out on the 26th: The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, Robert Kanigel (S&S/ Washington Square Press).
The NYT offers a feature on the film, which is about an impoverished math genius from India, who has “the ability to divine formulas seemingly from thin air that, a century later, are informing computer development, economics and the study of black holes.” However, both the Hollywood Reporter and Variety give it lackluster reviews.
Also opening on the 29th is an animated movie Ratchet & Clank, based on the SF video game series that features a Lombax (a cat-like species that walks on two feet) and a robot who have adventures across multiple galaxies.
Scholastic is releasing two tie-in titles. Ratchet and Clank: The Movie Novel, Kate Howard (Scholastic; OverDrive Sample) and Ratchet and Clank: Hero Time (The Movie Reader), Meredith Rusu (Scholastic; OverDrive Sample). Forthcoming in August is the Game Guide Book (Ratchet and Clank), (Scholastic).
Entertainment Weekly reports a new tie-in game is also out. In their game review The Verge calls it “the best possible commercial for the upcoming animated movie.”