Over There

International Box Office Report for April 6, 2015

By Edwin Davies

April 6, 2015

Sometimes, you just want to put on formal attire and drive really fast cars off an airplane.

New at BOP:
Share & Save
Digg Button  
Print this column
Like a car driving out the window of a skyscraper and through the window of another skyscraper, there was no stopping Furious 7 this weekend. The seventh and angriest installment in the Fast and Furious franchise absolutely dominated both the domestic and international box office, breaking opening weekend records for the series in pretty much every territory it hit. Furious 7 opened to $240.4 million overseas this weekend, a huge debut that augers great things for the film in the weeks ahead since it did that without touching big markets like China and Japan.

The Fast and Furious films have seen huge growth internationally since the release of the fourth film, the tersely titled Fast and Furious, earned $208.1 million back in 2009. Fast Five doubled that with $416.3 million in 2011, the Fast & Furious 6 topped that with $550 million in 2013. You know you're in a rarefied strata when a film's baseline for expectations is half a billion dollars internationally, but that's where we're at with Furious 7. The goodwill generated by the last three films, combined with the appealing diversity of the cast and the still-fresh shock over Paul Walker's death, should ensure that it has no problem exceeding the total of its predecessor. Coupled with a strong domestic performance, a finish close to or over a billion dollars globally doesn't seem out of the question at this point. That's quite the turnaround for a franchise that was presumed spent by the release of its third installment.

Unsurprisingly, Cinderella gets flattened by the arrival of such a juggernaut, though it's hardly hurting. The Disney fairytale added $24.3 million, which brings its international take to $230 million and leaves its global total just shy of $400 million. Between this and Fifty Shades of Grey, 2015 is shaping up to be a banner year for films about submissive women who obsess over boring rich guys.




Advertisement



Third this week is Wolf Warrior, a Chinese action film co-starring one-time Expendable and all-round punching machine Scott Adkins. The film earned $22 million his weekend, bringing its total to $28 million.

Home is fourth as the DreamWorks alien feature added $20.7 million. After three weeks in release, the animated movie with an interesting selection of celebrities in its cast has earned a very solid $85.2 million, still has plenty of room to expand, and more or less no competition until Pixar's Inside Out comes out in a few months.

Kingsman has yet another good weekend, adding $20 million and bringing its international total to a crazy $248.3 million. Pretty soon we could see Taron Egerton joining Ansel Elgort in the exclusive club of global superstars whose names sound like anagrams. (I hear that if you can figure out their true names from those letters, they have to grant you a wish.)

Let's Get Married, a Chinese romance, is sixth with $16 million to go along with the pretty good $180,000 it earned from 39 theaters in the US. It currently has $20 million from Chinese audiences, and looks like another homegrown success for their film industry.

Insurgent continues to do perfectly fine, happily taking money from people who aren't above watching off-brand Katniss Everdeen punch emotions or whatever. The YAdaptation added $15.5 million this weekend, bringing its overseas total to $120.2 million. At this pace, it should overtake Divergent's total of $137.8 million next weekend, and go on to make up whatever ground the film has lost domestically.

SpongeBob is eighth this weekend with $5.8 million. The little sponge that could has so far earned $136 million from international audiences, guaranteeing we will probably see a third cinematic outing for the residents of Bikini Bottom sometime around 2026, assuming they keep to their current schedule.

Twenty, the South Korean coming of age drama that made a dent in the top ten last week, is still doing fine this weekend. It added $5.3 million, good for ninth place and a running total of $15.5 million.

Focus rounds out the top ten this week with $4.9 million, bringing the Will Smith vehicle's total to $91 million. That's not bad for most of the people involved - its global total of $143.8 million is a career high for co-writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, for example - and it's even one of Will Smith's better non-sci fi, non-sequel performances. It's still probably going to have to wait for home video to see a real profit, but Focus has turned into a solid first step away from blockbuster roles for Smith.


     


 
 

Need to contact us? E-mail a Box Office Prophet.
Friday, April 19, 2024
© 2024 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.