Over There

By Edwin Davies

August 11, 2014

Real movie or cosplay? You be the judge.

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After Star-Lord showed up last week to save the galaxy and/or summer box office, this weekend proved to be far less disruptive. Despite rudely being displaced from the top of the box office in America, Guardians of the Galaxy remains the number one film everywhere else. It added nine territories and earned $40.1 million, off a little bit from last week's $66.4 million. That gives the Marvel space opera/visual-accompaniment-to-a-mix-tape a running total of $137.3 million after two weekends. To put that into context, that puts it on track to overtake the first Captain America's overseas total of $193.9 million by the end of next weekend at the earliest, and it will almost certainly overtake Iron Man 2's $311.5 by the time it opens in China next month. With room for expansion, we should expect Guardians of the Galaxy to be around for a while to come.

Dawn of the Planets of the Apes took in another $29.5 million this weekend for a running total of $308.2 million. With that, it sails past the half billion mark and has now overtaken Rise of the Planet of the Apes' international total of $306 million. A finish near or north of $400 million seems very likely at this point, since the sequel to the reboot still has plenty of life left in it.

The number one movie in America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, had a softer start overseas as it opened in 20 territories and earned $28.7 million, good for third place. Much of that came from Russia, which has repeatedly proved receptive to producer Michael Bay's particular style of filmmaking, and bodes well for the reboot that people were apparently asking for. Just behind it is the South Korean film The Admiral: Roaring Currents, which had a record-breaking debut last week of $30 million (the highest debut in Korean box office history) and added another $26.5 million for a running total of $81 million. Considering how many great films have been coming out of South Korea in the last decade and a half, it should be interesting to see what about this film is connecting so well with audiences there if it makes its way to the US. With box office numbers like that, it probably never needs to open anywhere other than South Korea.




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Fifth belongs to Lucy, which expanded to 20 territories and was rewarded with $21 million. The Luc Besson action film has already become his most successful directorial work in the US by a considerable margin, and Lucy's total of $29 million after three weeks is a very good start considering that his films consistently do much bigger business internationally than they do domestically. Meanwhile Michael Bay, another director whose worldwide appeal increasingly dwarfs his appeal in America, makes his second appearance in the top ten with Transformers: Age of Extinction. The fourth Autobots-Decepticon rumble took another $17.4 million and now has a stunning overseas total of $789.3 million. It's nearing the end of its spectacular run, but it should manage to cross $800 million by next week, if not the one after, becoming the ninth film to ever reach that number.

Seventh this weekend is The Inbetweeners Movie 2, which earned $12.5 million. A fairly small number of you might be wondering how they managed to make two films from that failed MTV series, but this is actually the second cinematic iteration of the original British TV show, a raunchy sex comedy (or, more accurately, lack of sex comedy) which has slowly become one of the most popular homegrown sitcoms of the last decade. The original film earned $88 million globally in 2012 (a paltry $36,000 of which came from a limited US run) and the sequel, which finds the perpetually embarrassed foursome going on holiday to Australia, should have no problem surpassing that total since it already has $20 million so far.

The bottom reaches of the chart are made up of a film that may soon drop out of the top ten and two new releases. How To Train Your Dragon 2 continues a steady march to a $500 million global total, adding $11.5 million to its slowly increasing overseas cume of $319.4 million; Pirates, a South Korean period film about people hunting a whale that has eaten a royal seal (I assume that means an important emblem, as opposed the kind of seals you see in circuses, zoos and aquariums, though that version of the story is much more whimsical and/or horrifying) debuted with $11 million; and Into the Storm, the film Twister could have been if it was cheaper and had worse special effects, opened in 21 territories and took $8.3 million. That's not a great start for a film that is probably highly dependent on overseas grosses to even approach a profit, so we'll have to wait and see if watching people run away from wind is as popular now as it was back in 1996. The Happening earned $98.9 million back in 2008, so clearly the idea has some residual appeal.


     


 
 

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