Monkey Kingdom, set in Sri Lanka, makes debut in North American box office..

Maya the monkey and her son Kip struggle to survive within the competitive social hierarchy of the troop at Castle Rock. When neighbouring monkeys take over their home, Maya's whole troop is forced to relocate. She uses her ingenuity to lead the members of her extended family to untapped resources amid strange new creatures and unfamiliar surroundings. Ultimately, the entire troop must work together to reclaim Castle Rock, where Maya hopes her son will have a bright future.

New nature documentary “Monkey Kingdom,” narrated by actress Tina Fey, made its debut in the seventh box office spot with $4.7 million in sales last weekend. The film follows a newborn and mother toque macaque living in ancient ruins founded in the jungles of Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka.

It was released by Disneynature on April 17, 2015 and is the eighth film by Disneynature, the independent film label of Walt Disney Studios.
Monkey Kingdom '​s major toque macaque characters consist of lead female Maya, her newborn son Kip, the troupe's alpha male Raja, a trio of high status females called The Sisterhood, and Kumar, a newcomer wishing entrance to the monkey tribe.

The nature documentary has received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 93%, based on 42 reviews. The site's consensus reads "Monkey Kingdom'​s breathtaking footage of primates in the wild is likely to please animal lovers of all ages."

"For Maya, she's kind of like any female human, if you like, trying to do the best for her kid. But she's got the weight of macaque society pressing on her as well," Mark Linfield, co-director and producer of the documentary told NPR news in an interview. "And that's what made her such an inventive, ingenious monkey ... she had to use her street smarts to get out of this sort of social straitjacket that she was in."

The Toronto Sun reports eco-activist Jane Goodall’s take on the movie. She says Disney knows what it's doing when it comes to nature docs. Goodall is a Disney ambassador and she fiercely defends the integrity of the films. “It is very rare that a film team can have the luxury of spending — as in this case — almost three years to film the monkeys. So they got to know the monkeys. They know their personalities. They know what behaviour to film to reveal their personalities and they have empathy with them.”

The end result, Goodall says, is a true-life account of what the filmmakers witnessed with a tribe of toque macaques living in the ruins of a temple in Sri Lanka. The filmmakers — a team lead by producers-directors Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill, who also did the Disneynature docs Earth and Chimpanzee together — chose one low-caste female macaque to follow throughout. They named her Maya and watched as she had a baby named Kip and struggled to improve her position within the tribe while facing incredible adversity.

The film does not shy away from the dark side. A trio of higher caste females that the filmmakers dubbed The Sisterhood is tough on females such as Maya. “Those three evil females in the troupe in Sri Lanka: I mean, they’re awful in what they do to the low-ranking mothers. They take their babies from them, it’s horrible.”

Life in Monkey Kingdom is as complex as life among humans, Goodall says. “You have a very strict caste system. I think what is amazing is they (the filmmakers) wanted to show the life of a low-ranking female and they picked Maya because she is distinctive. Then, having chosen her, this story unfolded: She gets a baby from an outsider male who’s thrown out and comes back in and, because he manages to defeat the king — the alpha male of the troupe — he gets a high place in the troupe and he is therefore able to support Maya and her baby. It’s an amazing story that just happened!”

Monkey Kingdom' (R) Disney Nature (81 min.) Directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill. Narrated by Tina Fey. Now playing in New York.

Watch the trailer below:

(Compiled off the Internet)