Jungle Book earns $528.5m to become 4th highest grosser ever as Winter's War gets poor response

For the second week in a row, The Jungle Book ruled global box offices earning a whopping $96m (£66m) – over the 22-24 April weekend – albeit with a 41% drop from its previous week's earning. The live-action remake of Disney's popular animated classic was well-received by critics and audiences alike and the film was even accorded with an A grade rating by polling firm Cinemascore.

Overall, the movie has earned $528.5m in international box offices and has gone on to become the fourth-highest grosser ever. Clearly, Disney's CGI-driven remake of the 1967 original film overshadowed the opening of this week's debutant, The Huntsman: Winter's War.

A sequel/prequel hybrid, the fantasy adventure boasts of star power with a cast including Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Chris Hemsworth, despite which Winter's War could only manage to bag a meek $32.1m overseas through ticket sales. Scoring even less than its previous installment – Snow White And The Huntsman – which managed to gross $56m at the North American box office. The reason the movie could have fallen through can be attributed to the absence of the original Snow White played by Kristen Stewart.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at comScore told the Washington Post: "She [Stewart] was a key reason for the opening of that first film. That was going to be a tough act to follow."

Not just with movie-goers, the partly-sequel partly-spin-off did not make a mark with critics either. While audiences still gave a B+ Cinemascore for the first weekend of the Huntsman, it could only manage a 17% positive review on RottenTomatoes. Directed by Oscar nominated Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, all the star power of The Huntsman: Winter's War could not manage to surpass the earnings of The Jungle Book.

Dergarabedian commended the marketing initiative of Disney movies saying, "The mouse is killing it right now. [Jungle book] has proven to be a much more formidable movie than we expected. We knew it'd be a big hit, but no one could've known it'd be this huge."