DIS Walt Disney Co

By Preetika Rana 

NEW DELHI -- Walt Disney Co. has managed to do something with its new remake of "The Jungle Book" that many Oscar-winning movies have failed to do: sell India to Indians.

The film, based on a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling, earned more than $24 million in ticket sales during its first two weeks in Indian theaters, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film of all time here.

Disney's earnings in India are a small slice of the $357 million "The Jungle Book" has grossed world-wide. The movie has made about $125 million in its domestic market -- the U.S. and Canada -- and $64 million in China. India is its third-biggest market.

The India collections are also not a huge haul compared with last year's biggest domestic blockbusters, which took in more than twice as much at the box office, but it is a sign U.S. studios are gaining significant traction in the world's second-most-populous country, a market that has long eluded them.

One of the secrets to Disney's success was a marketing campaign that tapped into nostalgia among young adults for the "Jungle Book" stories, which revolve around the adventures of an Indian boy named Mowgli.

A cartoon series based on Kipling's tales, which was made in Japan, was hugely popular when it aired on state television in India in the 1990s.

Disney wanted to "awaken the Mowgli in every Indian," said Amrita Pandey, a vice president at Disney in India. In addition to children, the movie drew "parents, young working adults -- everyone who wanted to come see the film. And that happened because we revived their childhood."

The studio composed its own rendition of the animated series' Hindi theme song, which has become a generational touchstone for Indians now in their late 20s and 30s. Disney's music video has racked up more than 5 million views on YouTube.

The company also expanded the film's reach by distributing it dubbed in three local languages -- Hindi, Tamil and Telugu -- in addition to the English version. The non-English versions accounted for more than half of all ticket sales.

"It's really tough to get the numbers if it's just an English film," Ms. Pandey said.

Some of Hollywood's biggest India-inspired hits have generated more controversy than ticket sales here. Critics attacked Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" as an overly poor representation of their country.

Other movies with India connections, such as "The Hundred Foot Journey" or "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," have received little or no screen-time here.

"To Indians, these movies feel like an Anglicized view of India," said Jehil Thakkar, head of the media and entertainment division of KPMG in India. In contrast, he said, the average Indian thinks of "Jungle Book" as more Indian than Western.

"In some ways it is ironic that India's biggest blockbuster comes from the man who wrote 'The White Man's Burden,' the man who wrote 'Kim,'" said Robert Thompson, a professor who studies pop culture at Syracuse University, referring to two Kipling works often criticized for having colonialist and racist overtones.

In "The White Man's Burden," written several years after Jungle Book, Kipling, an Indian-born English writer who died in 1936, talks about how he believed white men were destined to travel to far-off foreign lands to bring local savages into the civilized world.

For many Indians, though, Mowgli, the hero of "Jungle Book," was a revelation.

"The cartoon stuck with us so much more than Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty," said Indian author and "Jungle Book" buff Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan. "That's because every kid saw Mowgli in them. We would think, 'A brown kid. Just like me!'"

KPMG's Mr. Thakkar said Hollywood is gaining ground in India by going more local. Last year, for example, Universal Studio Inc. released "Furious 7" dubbed in three local languages. It made $23 million, a record until "The Jungle Book" came along.

KPMG estimates Hollywood's earnings in India will grow faster than those of the Indian industry, known as Bollywood, in the next five years.

Write to Preetika Rana at preetika.rana@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 21, 2016 12:24 ET (16:24 GMT)

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