‘MONKEY KINGDOM’- Sri Lanka in Disney’s Spotlight in the US
View(s):Sri Lanka Tourism said this week that apart from its aggressive marketing that it is engaged in the focused markets of China and Germany the country is set to receive a massive boost from in its seventh key market USA with a top billed Disney movie ‘Monkey Kingdom’, a feature-length wildlife documentary billed to debut in US cinemas on April 17 and rolled down to 12,000 cinemas across the country.
Filmed almost entirely around Polonnaruwa, the film documents the life of a troop of wild toque-macaque monkeys (rilaw), including breathtaking action sequences set in the precincts of the sacred city.
The film is directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill, who were responsible for other Disney blockbusters such as ‘Earth’, which grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Their last movie 2012 movie ‘Chimpanzee’, filmed in West Africa, grossed almost $35 million, a record for a wildlife documentary, which had the potential for Sri Lanka to be a top of the mind brand among families that have kids, said Minister of Sports and Tourism Navin Dissanayake.
The script is narrated by famed Hollywood actress Tina Fey. In addition to an alluring musical score by the British composer Harry Gregson-Williams (whose scores for ‘Shrek’ and ‘Wolverine’ were widely acclaimed), ‘Monkey Kingdom’s’ has adopted the chart-topping hit song ‘Team’ by the New Zealand-born pop singer Lorde.
According to Minister Dissanayake, who also oversees the subject of wildlife, his ministry plans to extract the maximum benefit for Sri Lanka’s tourism industry from this propaganda windfall. “The movie portrays Sri Lanka as a genuinely exotic destination and shows not just the monkeys but also their association with the historic city of Polonnaruwa and its people”, he said. “No one pays much attention to these monkeys in Sri Lanka, and most people think of them as pests. But this film shows how fascinating these animals are and I hope it will inspire people to pay more attention to their conservation.”