New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

While the biggest news this past weekend came in the form of American Sniper's multi-record breaking debut, the story overseas was a little bit different. Clint Eastwood's latest still features in there somewhere, but it'll be a little while before we get to it.

International audiences were more interested in watching a different movie star with a dubious accent kill hundreds of foreigners this weekend, which is why Taken 3 was the number one film outside of the US. Liam Neeson's final turn as Bryan Mills (at least until Luc Besson drives a dump truck full of money up to his house) earned $31.4 million, which gives it a total of $99 million so far.

Seventh Son continues to do pretty well this weekend, especially considering that it was starting to look like the much-delayed film would never see the light of day. The fantasy movie that only seems to exist because Jeff Bridges grew a pointy beard some years ago earned $21.7 million, and has $60.5 million to date.

The final Night of the Museum film continues the series' tradition of doing well with international audiences as it took in $17.8 million this weekend. It has a very solid $179.9 million so far - almost double what it has earned in the US - which means it is starting to creep up on the original film's overseas gross of $235.9 million.

Speaking of movies that are doing better overseas than domestically, the Penguins of Madagascar made off with $16.3 million this weekend, which gives them a running total of $225.6 million, or almost three times what they earned in the US. It's not enough to prevent DreamWorks from writing off an eight figure loss and firing a bunch of staff, but it's better than a slap in the face. Unless you're one of those people who got fired, in which case a slap would probably have been preferable.

I'm seeing a trend emerging in this mid-section of the chart, as yet another film that under-performed badly in America rounds out the top five. Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings earned $10.9 million, and it has so far earned $185.8 million from international audiences. To put that into context, it earned a very paltry $64.3 million domestically, so while it probably won't be enough to get Exodus: Dude, Where's My Promised Land? greenlit, it's probably making Fox's balance sheet look a lot less horrifying.

The final Hobbit film continues to hum along nicely in sixth place. It earned $9.8 million, which gives it a huge total of $558.6 million internationally and more than $800 million globally. At this rate, it should end up close to the $702 million that The Desolation of Smaug managed, though whether or not it does better than that is dependent on China at this point.

It may be number one with a bullet (or roughly a thousand) in America, but internationally American Sniper could only manage seventh place. However, it is only playing in eight territories outside of the US, so its weekend total of $9.3 million looks pretty good in that light, and even more so when you factor in how potentially limiting a film about an American war with the word “American” in the title could have been. After playing in international markets for three weeks, American Sniper has earned a very promising $25.36 million.

Eight this week is Miss Granny, a South Korean body swap comedy which earned $9 million, giving it $37 million overall. Clearly the appeal of stories in which old people suddenly become young through magic knows no boundaries.

Oscar hopeful The Theory of Everything is in ninth this weekend with $8 million. The film which made Eddie Redmayne a first-time nominee and in likelihood a first-time loser has so far earned $31 million from overseas audiences.

Finally this weekend we have Disney's Into the Woods. The fairytale mash-up is having a slower, more gradual release pattern overseas, so its $7.3 million this weekend and $26 million total overall shouldn't be taken as a lack of success, but rather as a precursor to it. After all, if Mamma Mia! could find $465.7 million outside of the US, Into the Woods should be able to manage at least a couple of hundred million.