Over There: International Box Office

By Edwin Davies

June 8, 2015

Shake it up.

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As Apollo 440 so memorably told us, you can't stop The Rock, advice that proved all too prescient this weekend as San Andreas continued to send shockwaves throughout the world. The film pretty much doubled its international take by earning $97.8 million, bringing its overseas total to $188 million and its global one to $287 million. At this rate, the film will easily become Dwayne Johnson's biggest non-Fast & Furious-related film in a matter of weeks. Currently, that title belongs to The Mummy Returns, which earned $433 million back in 1999.

Spy is second as the Melissa McCarthy comedy continues to do very well. It earned $25.6 million for a new total of $56.5 million. I've said before that comedy tends not to travel as well internationally as it does domestically, but Spy has the advantage of being an action-comedy hybrid, which detracts from the specificity a little bit, and from co-starring Jason Statham, a legitimate action star on a high after playing the villain in Furious 7. Those factors, along with the film's strong reviews, should help push it to new heights for a McCarthy vehicle.

Insidious Chapter 3 lands in third place with $14.3 million, which gives the film a global debut of $37.3 million. That's a very strong start for a film that cost only $10 million to produce, and while the Insidious franchise has not been much of a powerhouse overseas so far, the cost is so low that they don't have to be. I'd expect Chapter 3 to ultimately fall somewhere between the $43 million the first one earned in 2011 and the $78.3 million the second managed in 2013.




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Tomorrowland continues to falter in fourth place, as the very expensive Disney feature earned a nowhere near good enough $13.8 million. The Brad Bird film has so far earned $93.5 million overseas and $76.2 million domestically, which leaves it short of the $190 million budget, and very far from being able to recoup what must be a significant marketing expenditure.

Stand By Me Doraemon rounds out the top five as the Japanese film from 2014 continues to do big business in China. The film earned $12.5 million and now has a running total of $147 million.

Mad Max: Fury Road is sixth and reached a significant milestone this weekend. The George Miller-directed sequel/reboot earned $11 million overseas and $7.9 million domestically, which pushed the global total for the film past the $300 million mark. Fury Road now has $314.8 million worldwide and should reach $400 million not long after it opens in Japan on June 20th. It could earn significantly more than that if Warner Bros. decide to open it in China, something which is not currently in the cards.

The Avengers soldier on in seventh with $7 million, which brings Age of Ultron's international total to a massive $910.2 million. It has now eclipsed the international total of the first film, which earned $895.2 million in 2012, and continues its slow march towards $1 billion internationally. It also overtook Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 to become the fourth highest-earning film of all-time.

Eight this week is Pitch Perfect 2, which added $4.6 million for a new total of $88.9 million internationally and $249.9 million globally. $300 million+ now seems very achievable for the sequel, or more than 11 times what it cost to make.

Poltergeist is ninth with $3.2 million, giving the remake an okay international take of $24.5 million. The production budget for the film wasn't all that high, so the film's global total of $68.9 million is nothing to sneeze at.

Finally this week we have Entourage, the HBO show-to-movie transition that we got instead of Deadwood because we live in a cold and unfeeling universe. Entourage earned $3 million from a small number of territories, but is unlikely to do much business overseas since the show was never the kind of global phenomenon that Sex and the City, to cite another example of an HBO comedy making the leap to cinemas, was, so it can only dream of the $262.6 million and $193 million that the first and second SATC movies earned.


     


 
 

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