Dwayne Johnson is no stranger to box office success, having seen seven of his last twelve major leading movie roles open at number one, and none of them debuted lower than third. The success of Disney’s Jungle Cruise ups that to eight out of thirteen, and he’ll arguably be enjoying this one more than the rest due to the circumstances.
As well as being delayed by over a year due to the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, the blockbuster adventure was also released day and date on Disney Plus Premier Access, but still managed to bring in over $34 million across the three-day frame to secure one of the largest opening weekends of the COVID-19 era. Throw in $27 million overseas and an estimated $30 million from Premier Access revenue, and that’s $91 million and counting in the coffers already.
Jungle Cruise also scored the highest audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes that Johnson’s filmography has ever seen, so folks clearly got a kick out of the effects-driven adventure that saw The Rock’s Frank Wolff and Emily Blunt’s Lily Houghton set out in search of a mystical flower with healing properties.
To celebrate Jungle Cruise‘s impressive bow, Johnson took to social media and thanked his legions of fans for driving the project to number one, and he didn’t even leave the comfort of the gym to do it, as you can see below.
Jungle Cruise isn’t the greatest film he’s ever been a part of, and it won’t even go down as one of this summer’s superior efforts, but it’s a perfectly acceptable slice of escapism and entertainment that lets to big stars bounce off each other in a classic odd couple dynamic wrapped around an adventure driven by a MacGuffin. It’s not particularly original, but it is fun.
