OPENING: X-Men: Days of Future Past (FOX), bows spectacularly with $171M+ in 119 markets for biggest year opener to date and No. 1 in every market; Blended (WB) opening in 6 markets, including the UK/Ireland and Germany; Godzilla grabs another $34.5M in its second weekend. Grace of Monaco opens in Russia and Her rolls out in Korea; The Grand Budapest Hotel nearing $100M with a worldwide total of about $156M; Frozen skates into the record books again.
2ND UPDATE, SUNDAY 2:30 PM: Most all estimated grosses are in right now; there are some stragglers I’m waiting for, but updates have been provided for a territory breakdown for X-Men: Days of Future Past which is breaking studio records and biggest opening territory records as it marches across markets. It definitely took away Godzilla‘s strength this weekend. Scroll below to see how the franchise has done in bigger territories.
Related: BOX OFFICE: ‘X-Men’ On Track To Top Five Memorial Day Openers And $260M+ Worldwide; ‘Blended’ Soft; ‘Godzilla’ Takes Hit; ‘Neighbors’ Crosses $100M
PREVIOUSLY, SUNDAY, 10:34 AM: 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. both have big news this weekend. Fox opened the next installment of its highly-anticipated X-Men franchise while Warner Bros. reached the $1B mark internationally, driven by some notable films (see story here). And Frozen skated in with a new record for Disney; it’s taken a seat in the top five movies of all time and skating past a well-known Marvel franchise (see story here). So, here we go on the international openers and holdovers:
20th Century Fox’s seventh film in its franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past, opened in 36 countries more than last weekend’s monster Godzilla, to gross an estimated $171M+ in 119 countries this weekend to (not surprisingly) stepping around the lizard to become the biggest international opener of 2014 (to date). It’s smashing many studio records as it opened to No. 1 in every market and the studio can proudly tout it as the biggest opening ever in 11 of those markets. Fantastic for Fox.
Fox touted that X-Men is also the highest grossing opening weekend globally for the X-Men franchise as well as its biggest international opening ever, surpassing Avatar which grossed $164.5M on Dec. 16, 2009. I made an error in trying to gather all this data. The $164.5M Avatar gross came in from not 64 markets as I reported earlier, but from 107 markets and included Spain and Venezuela. As I previously (and correctly) reported, 3D accounted for about 25% of the Avatar gross and China wasn’t included in that $164.5M number.
I do not have all the numbers of all the X-Men international debuts and to report things in the proper perspective we need to see if it is an apples to apples comparison. Remember, it’s a bank holiday weekend in the UK which boosts business and next weekend all pics will enjoy another holiday in Germany.
Star Hugh Jackman, of course, is a fan favorite from Wolverine and Jennifer Lawrence is known to the worldwide audience through the wildly successful Hunger Games franchise and the cast includes international favs such as James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Peter Dinklage, Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart with Omar Sy who starred in the French box office hit Intouchables and popular Chinese actress Fan BingBing. So we can expect Australia, France, the UK and China to benefit from this international casting job. Smartly done, Fox.
Related: Specialty Box Office: Jodorowsky’s ‘Dance Of Reality’ Sashays In Solidly; IFC Debuts ‘Cold In July’, ‘Gore Vidal’
The picture has also been promoted heavily throughout Europe, complete with a star-studded premiere and also projected a very cool 3D still in the X-crossing of Oxford Square in London’s West End last night in the X-crossing of Oxford Square where about 500,000 shoppers pass through daily. It paid off with the biggest X-Men opening ever in the UK with $14.2M … and counting.
X-Men market by market: The Fox franchise rolled into China and took $37.7M of the three-day, opening the second highest ever for the studio, only 5% behind Titanic 3D. Speaking of 3D, X-Men doesn’t have the benefit of those screens unfortunately as they are locked up with that pesky monster, Godzilla. In South Korea, X-Men beat Avatar to beccome the biggest opening of all time and the best opening of 2014, beating both Marvel titles Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Add another $10.6M in France. And in Mexico, it enjoyed the second highest opener there (behind Ice Age 4) for the studio and opening bigger than Dark Knight Rises, Thor 2 and the Captain.
It ranks as the biggest X-Men opener also in Russia where it grabbed $10.3M to jump past Spidey’s opening by 10% and Cap 2‘s opening by 33%. Not to be outdone, it’s busting records Down Under. In Australia, with a $7.7M opening, it marks the biggest for the industry this year and also marks the biggest X-Men opening ever in that market, 54% bigger than Spidey, Cap and Thor 2. It plowed through Germany, taking nearly 50% of the total marketshare for a No. 1 spot and $4.7M gross (17% bigger than the Cap). With $3.9M a piece, the seventh film in the series also became the studio’s biggest opener ever in both India and the Philippines. Same record for the biggest studio opener holds true in Brazil with $8M, Singapore and Malaysia. Nicely done.
In its second weekend out, Godzilla grossed an estimated $34.5M on approximately 13,700 screens to bring its total international cume to $166.6M and its worldwide cume to over $300M so far. We have yet another holiday to play out domestically and the bank holiday in the UK is helping business across the board. The lizard has yet to bow in China and won’t open there until June 13. It also unleashes in Japan on July 25th. The franchise held onto its No. 2 position in Russia where its cume to date is $13.2M after hauling in another $2.5M, in Mexico, where it grossed another $2.4M to bring its cume up to $13.2M again, in Australia were it chased in another $2.3M to bring its cume up to $9.8M and in Australia where it stands at $10.2M after raking in another $2.3M again.
To take advantage of that UK holiday, Blended opened in that market as well as in Germany to gross $2.1M from 750 screens … that’s a per screen average of $2,800. Warner Bros. expects it to play well as it is getting good feedback on the picture there.
Grace of Monaco is behind handled by a number of different distributors — EOne, Gaumont, etc. — so it’s hard to get all the numbers reported, but can give you the Russia opening now which is being handled by Uni. In Russia, the controversial film opened to the third best per screen average this weekend and No. 4 for an estimated $710K at approx. 397 dates. That averages roughly $1,788 per.
Million Dollar Arm from Disney’s grosses are non-existent as it shows that it is not playing anywhere this week. It opened last weekend only in India to take in $439K internationally. It’s cume to date is 500K.
Neighbors is posting a strong third weekend out and its worldwide total is … for a little frat pac comedy … a whopping $181M. There were no new openings this weekend, but playing in 35 markets, it took in another $8.2M for a total of $67.4M. Key holdover countries include the UK and Ireland (again the bank holiday business) where Bad Neighbours — as it’s titled there — is No. 3 and has a 17-day total of $22.8M as it grabbed another $2.2M from 454 playdates. This comedy that stars Seth Rogen and Zach Efron, opens in 22 more countries over the next few months with Russia coming next weekend.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 now stands at $489M internationally, having spun another $11.2M from 92 territories. Its top market? China. Of course. It has grossed $90.4M in that market alone with the next biggest territory being the UK with $39.7M and South Korea after that with $33.7M to date. Worldwide, Spidey is at $675M and still playing, although it’s playing out and there is no doubt that it’s dropping as these other franchise pictures stomp into the marketplace around the world.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is on the verge of crossing $100M internationally with five markets yet to release including Japan next month and Brazil after that. Will it do it? Absolutely. It’s sitting at $99M right now. It will go well past. The Wes Anderson film will have made about $M after the holiday weekend is done in the states for a worldwide cume of $M.
Her, you’ll remember that Warner Bros.’ pic from Oscar season, opened in South Korea to No. 8 and the fourth highest per screen average in that country in limited release. Uni is handling there. Specifically, on 135 screens it grossed an estimated $426K for the weekend, or a decent $3,155 per.
The Other Woman still has six markets to release. The Fox comedy took another $3.8M over the weekend for a total estimated cume of $86.9M. Added to its domestic tally, and the worldwide cume is now $165.5M. It has six markets yet to release including the big ones of South Korea, Spain, France and Italy.
Rio 2, the animated family film from Fox now 10 weeks in release, is No 1. in Venezuela for the 4th consecutive week and has taken in an impressive $9.7M there to date. The film’s international cume now stands at $329.2M after adding another $4.8M this weekend. It’s worldwide cume after the weekend stateside is now $451.6M.
Also noteworthy is Spanish Affairs, the picture that will not stop playing in Spain. It is still holding strong at No. 2 and has tallied up a huge $74.4M in that country in only 73 days. It sits right under Godzilla. The comedy is the highest grossing Spanish film of all time in Spain and distribs Uni’s highest ever in the territory.