Over There: International Box Office

By Edwin Davies

February 16, 2015

My Destiny fire squad.

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Every headline about Fifty Shades of Grey will be about its hugely successful domestic opening, and rightly so, but as is so often the case with American films, the international numbers are equally if not more impressive. The adaptation of the furtively-read bestseller earned $158 million overseas this weekend, which is huge in general, but especially for an R-rated film. It might have trouble sustaining that momentum in the weeks ahead, but even so it shouldn't have much trouble becoming one of the most successful R-rated films ever at the international box office, as well as a hugely profitable enterprise considering that it only cost $40 million to make.

Second this week is Somewhere Only We Know, a Chinese drama that earned $30 million and has accrued $43 million from Chinese audiences so far. With that sort of success, adaptations of future Keane songs can't be far behind.

Kingsman: The Secret Service expanded into a few markets to coincide with its domestic bow and it did fairly well. The Matthew Vaughn-directed comic book adaptation earned $23.1 million and has $43.8 million to date. Vaughn's films tend to do well with overseas audiences - his first three all earned as much as or more internationally than domestically - and this looks like it'll be no different. Considering that it was a little on the expensive side with an $81 million budget, this has to be encouraging news for the potential franchise.

Less encouraging is the performance of Jupiter Ascending. The Wachowskis gonzo space opera earned $15.6 million this weekend, bringing its total to $58.9 million. That obviously looks better than the film's anemic domestic performance, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to its $178 million budget. Jupiter Ascending still has China in its future, so could theoretically match its production budget before all is said and done, though the difficulties of international profit-sharing and marketing costs will still make this one a huge money loser for Warner Bros.




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The unwieldily titled The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is fifth this weekend with $13.5 million. The second cinematic outing for the world's favorite sponge (not there's any particularly strong competition) has so far earned $46.3 million, which means that it should overtake the international take of the first film ($54.7 million) by next weekend at the latest, and it should earn at least $100 million overseas before all is said and done.

Big Hero 6 continues to plug away in sixth this weekend. The Disney/Marvel animated film has slowly rolled out over the last few months to most markets, so even though it's pretty much done domestically, it still has a lot more life overseas. This week, it earned $9.2 million, which brings its total to a huge $301.8 million.

Taken 3 is another film that continues to do pretty well overseas despite reaching the end of the road in the US (though it burned out a lot more quickly than Big Hero 6 did). The Liam Neeson action movie earned $7.1 million this weekend, giving it a running tally of $192 million, or more than two times what it managed in the US.

The third Night at the Museum film creeps ever so slowly towards the international total of its predecessor, confirming that someone out there still likes these movies, I guess. The series finale earned $6.7 million this weekend, giving it a total to date of $223 million, which compares favorably to the second film's $235.9 million, but is a far cry from the first film's $323.6 million. What's perhaps most interesting about this is that it's the rare franchise to have lost ground overseas with each film, even as the international market has exploded since the first film debuted in 2006.

Ninth this week is the South Korean adventure movie Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island. A sequel to a hugely successful movie from several years ago, Detective K earned $6.2 million this weekend and has a total of $7 million so far.

Finally this week we have Oscar hopeful The Imitation Game. The Alan Turing biopic earned $4 million, which brings its international total to a very respectable $83 million, or roughly the same amount as it has earned in the US. That's a very good showing for a drama, and a strong indicator of the impact that Oscar nominations can have on a film's box office.


     


 
 

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