Over There: International Box Office

By Edwin Davies

July 14, 2014

The two greatest heroes of the summer movie campaign.

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Disney's Maleficent continues its phenomenal run in fourth, earning $13.4 million from 46 territories. Pretty much everyone under-estimated this one before the summer began, and most predictions saw it as likely to perform similarly to Snow White and the Huntsman ($396.5 million worldwide; $155.3 million domestic, $241.2 million overseas). Since it has earned $221.9 million domestically and $447 million elsewhere, becoming Angelina Jolie's top-grossing film in the process, it's fair to say that those expectations have been thoroughly exceeded.

If you need any further convincing that this is a slow time of year as far as the international box office is concerned, or of how big of a deal China is, consider that the sixth most popular film in the world right now is Tammy, which is only playing in America and earned $12.9 million this weekend, and that the films in seventh and eighth place are a pair of Chinese comedies that have made a negligible impact outside of their homeland to date. Old Boys: The Way of the Dragon and The Breakup Guru earned $12.4 million and $11 million respectively. You may not have heard of either of them, but consider this: the Breakup Guru has earned $91.5 million so far, almost all of it from China, which means that, in terms of global box office, the stars of the Breakup Guru are as big or bigger deal than Johnny Depp, Adam Sandler and the Muppets right now.

The superlative performance of The Fault in Our Stars domestically might have obscured the fact that, as big a hit as it has been in America, it has done just as well with foreign audiences. The John Green weeper starring rising star Shailene Woodley and walking anagram Ansel Elgort earned $7.8 million this weekend, bringing its overseas total to $118.5 million. It has effectively matched its domestic take, and will most likely exceed it by this time next week. For a heartfelt drama that cost $12 million, grossing nearly 20 times its budget is nothing short of astonishing.




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At number ten is 22 Jump Street, which took $6.3 million, pushing its take outside of the States to $81.7 million. The Lord/Miller comedy (their second film to gross more than $250 million worldwide this year after The LEGO Movie) has seen solid growth from its predecessor, which earned $63.1 million from foreign audiences back in 2012. $28 million of that came from the UK alone, almost double 21 Jump Street's total there, and it still hasn't opened in most territories, so there's every reason to expect 22 Jump Street to ultimately cross the $100 million mark internationally. That's doubly impressive since comedies tend not to travel well outside of their country of origin unless they're animated or incredibly high-concept.

Finally, here's an interesting tidbit from the lower reaches of the chart. The 11th most popular film internationally this weekend was the Korean thriller The Divine Move, which earned $6 million. Despite only playing in South Korea, it almost beat the entire global take of Scott Derrickson's Deliver Us From Evil, which earned $6.1 million over the same period, only $1.4 million of which came from countries other than the US. The people who gave Deliver Us From Evil the green light are probably wondering now whether it would have been a better financial decision to set the film in Seoul rather than New York.


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