‘Justice League’ Lassos $185M Overseas, $279M WW; ‘Thor’ Rocks To $739M Global – International Box Office
by
Nancy Tartaglione
November 20, 2017 12:33pm
Warner Bros Pictures
UPDATE, Monday writethru with actuals: Warner Bros/
DC’s
Justice League assembled
$185 million at the
international box office in its debut session this weekend, $500K down from the Sunday estimate.
Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and friends were at play on about 46,660 screens in 65 markets, with
China leading at a slightly improved $51.8M.
Including
domestic, the worldwide opening is
$279M. W
hile WB has the overseas launch ahead of
Wonder Woman in like-for-like markets, the score is lower than the $200M-plus we were hearing amid pre-opening buzz.
Kicking off outside a holiday corridor was certainly a factor (
Wonder Woman played in the summer and
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was an Easter release), and even if audiences seem to like the movie better than critics, some markets in Europe were quite soft, notably Germany. There’s disappointment in not seeing see this one break $200M globally in its first frame, coming in about 16% below
BvS, as this was set up as DC’s answer to
The Avengers. One distribution exec points to the lack of Superman in the advertising, and notes, “What made
BvS appealing was two superheroes squaring off, so this movie just feels like an
Avengers B-team.”
Still, a $185M offshore opening is a sizable number and there were strong results out of certain areas, with social shout-outs for Wonder Woman and Aquaman, in particular. On 765 Imax screens, a $13.7M launch is the best November opening ever for the format.
In
Asia,
JL amassed $40.1M in 10 markets — not including China or Japan (the latter goes next week). The regional cume is the second-biggest opening for a WB film ever (behind
BvS).
Latin America also pulled in strong numbers, coming in slightly higher than the Sunday estimate with $35.9M for the region to score the 3rd biggest launch ever for WB behind
BVS and the final
Harry Potter. In
Brazil,
JL‘s $14.2M (46.7M reals) start is the biggest industry opening weekend ever.
China and Brazil lead the Top 5 and are followed by
Mexico ($9.6M/184.2M pesos), the
UK ($9.5M/£7.3M) and
Korea ($8.5M/9.6B won).
Marvel
As for the other heroes showing off their superpowers globally, Disney/Marvel’s
Thor: Ragnarok added a better-than-estimated
$24.7M internationally in this fourth weekend. That Hulks up the overseas cume to
$491.9M and has bested both
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and
Doctor Strange. It’s tracking above those pics by 11% and 17%, respectively, and is the No. 6 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever at the international box office. With $739.2M worldwide, it’s the ninth MCU title to cross $700M.
Elsewhere,
Happy Death Day is on the doorstep of $100M globally for Universal and Blumhouse, while Fox’s
Murder On The Orient Express will roll to that number internationally this week. Studiocanal/Heyday Films’
Paddington 2 has hit $22M after its second weekend in the UK; and Disney/Pixar’s
Coco is on the verge of crossing $50M in Mexico alone.
Breakdowns and actuals on the films above and others have been updated below (we are waiting on Lionsgate, STX and the
Paddington 2 weekend total).
NEW
JUSTICE LEAGUE
Warner Bros.
With a
$185M opening in 65 markets this session, Warner Bros/DC’s mash-up came in under the projections of several industry sources. That’s a nice number, but
Justice League just couldn’t get up to the $200M mark which most saw it eclipsing as Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg all banded together on the big screen and after DC got some street cred back with this summer’s smash led by Gal Gadot’s Amazonian warrior.
JL did top
WW’s opening in like-for-like markets, and as with domestic, audiences overseas are reacting with more positive notes than critics (in France the public gives it four stars, but critics give it two).
JL will have some relatively clear play in its demo over the next few weeks until
Star Wars: The Last Jedi speeds in, and therefore could be looking at lower drops than the typically frontloaded genre. It will not benefit from the Thanksgiving holiday that’s up this week domestically.
JL’s lack of a holiday, which can boost fortunes by as much as 25%, is in direct contrast to
BVS’ Easter 2016 international release which was off the charts. The Zack Snyder-directed
JL is about 16% below that movie in today’s dollars, but there was hope for a much tighter spread and that
hope began to fizzle as the weekend numbers started rolling in from offshore. Japan opens this week.
With a reported production cost of $300M, the total with P&A is around the $450M mark. As my colleague Anthony D’Alessandro points out, if the film
clears$700M-$750M global, after ancillaries, it will turn a profit, but not much.
Moving past the doom and gloom, the pic, which has more humor than
BVS and saw Joss Whedon come in for Snyder after the director had to step away due to an unfortunate tragedy, scored $13.7M on 765
IMAX screens to rank as the format’s best-ever November opening overseas. In China, that numbers was $6.15M on 453 to land the 2nd best November FSS after
Doctor Strange.
The superheroes are the No. 1 U.S. film in each of their bows and saw particularly strong play in Asia and Latin America.
Brazil set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever for any movie at $14.2M (46.7M reals). DC superheroes generally over-index in Latin America and this weekend the
Justice League gang recruit $35.9M in the region to land the 3rd highest opening session for a WB film behind
BVS and the last
Harry Potter movie.
WB
In Asia, the regional take is $40.1M for the 2nd best ever studio bow behind
BVS. That figure does not include
Chinawhere
JL made $51.8M (RMB 343.8M) pretty much exactly where we saw this going in. It played on 20,600 screens and took 65% of the Top 5 films to rank as the runner-up to
BVSin terms of Middle Kingdom WB bows.
The
UK was softer than expected, with $9.5M (£7.3M) on 1,648 screens with 40% of the Top 5 movies. WB has it topping
Thor: Ragnarok, but that would only be over the weekend days since
Thor opened to more than $15M in its first frame, which began on a Tuesday.
JL topped
Wonder Woman by 51% from June.
Mexico is at $9.6M (184.2M pesos) on 3,615 screens, with a 64% share of the Top 5 and besting
Wonder Woman by about 20%.
Korea, which is not nuts for DC as a general rule, did $8.5M with 56% of the Top 5 films on 1,315 screens.
Rounding out the Top 10 are
Russia ($6.4M);
Australia ($6.2M),
France($6.15M);
Indonesia ($5.8M/No. 2 ever WB opening); and the
Philippines($5.6M/top WB debut ever/+46% on
Thor 3).
At the bottom of the pack of majors are
Italy with $3.6M and double
Wonder Woman;
Spain with $3.1M for the 2nd biggest WB opening of the year; and
Germany with a really rough $3M on 936 screens.
HOLDOVERS/EXPANSIONS
THOR: RAGNAROK
Disney/Marvel
Disney/Marvel’s threequel is rocking and rolling along at the international box office with another
$24.7M this session and a
$491.4M cume. The Norse charmer has now overtaken both
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 and
Doctor Strange overseas and is leading them by 11% and 17%, respectively. It’s now the No. 6 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever. With
$739.2Mworldwide, it’s the 9th MCU title to cross $700M.
Globally this weekend, the son of Odin topped
Captain America: The Winter Soldier($714M) and
Doctor Strange ($678M). He now fronts the MCU’s No. 8 release of all time worldwide.
Holds were strong in many markets and despite the arrival of the DC rivals. Notables include the Czech Republic (-32%), Venezuela (-35%), Japan (-39%), Denmark (-42%), Germany (-42%), Peru (-43%) and South Africa (-44%).
In the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, the Taika Waititi-helmed romp is north of $145M to exceed the lifetimes of
Spiderman: Homecoming and
Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the area.
The Top 5 plays are China ($107.5M), the UK ($37.2M), Korea ($33.2M), Brazil ($27.4M) and Australia ($22.6M).
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
20th Century Fox
After a terrific wide opening last weekend, Fox’s Agatha Christie adaptation rolled out of its second frame with another
$20.7M in 56 markets. That’s a 65% drop from
last week, although the international cume is now
$96.5M, setting the stylish Kenneth Branagh mystery on track to pass $100M this week. The worldwide take so far is
$148.2M.
China led markets again, although with
Justice League taking up a lot of real estate,
MOTOE fell to No. 3 (ahead of
Thor’s 3rd session) and a local cume of $30.2M. In
Russia, the ensemble added $3.2M at No. 2 for an $11.2M cume; followed by the
UK with $3M and a $23.1M cume after three weeks. It ranked No. 3 behind
Justice League and
Paddington 2 and has amassed 13% more there than the lifetime of
The Great Gatsby.
Germany, where the
Justice League folks could barely get arrested, saw just a 12% dip for a $5.6M cume and
Australia fell 29% for a $6.3M running total.
Overall,
Orient Express is outpacing
The Great Gatsby (+48%) and
Gone Girl(+98%) in the same bucket of markets at current exchange rates. Next weekend, 11 new markets hop aboard.
PADDINGTON 2
Heyday Films
Paddington 2, the Paul King-directed sequel to 2014’s global smash, has now grossed $22M at home in the UK, while holds are looking warm and fuzzy in such markets as Sweden, Finland and Italy. We will have a full breakdown on this one tomorrow, but in the meantime, the
UK info from Studocanal has this weekend at £6.36M (
$8.4M) and a cume of £16.6M (
$22M). The previous film, which made $268M worldwide, finaled at £37.9M in Britain.
Along with the box office success, this was
a big week for the bear from darkest Peru as he found a domestic home with Warner Bros, and away from the embattled Weinstein Co. Deadline broke the news on Wednesday that the studio, which is also the home of producer David Heyman, was acquiring domestic rights, emerging from a bidding war that reached $30M. Now WB needs to get in gear for a January 12 release date.
HAPPY DEATH DAY
Universal Pictures
Celebrating getting
thisclose to $100M worldwide, Universal and Blumhouse’s
Happy Death Day added
$7.9M in 52 markets this session. The overseas total is
$43.5M and with domestic, there are
$98.9M in the global coffer.
France had a good start at No. 2 with $1.6M.
Germanyalso bowed this week, with $1.3M. German- and French-speaking
Switzerland are off to a $270K debut and
Austria opened at No. with $148K.
Korea was the top holdover with a terrific $7.5M total to suffocate the lifetime of
Don’t Breathe.
Italy also is holding nicely with $731K at No. 3 and $2.2M to date.
Spain’s got $1.9M so far. Next weekend adds three out of the final six markets to go.
A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS
STXfilms
With no new markets, Mila Kunis & co slipped another
$5.1M into their stockings for an overseas cume of
$26.6M and a worldwide gross of
$77.5M.
Germanydipped by 22% to take the two-frame total to $4.6M. It’s running 20% behind
Bad Moms, 158% ahead of
Horrible Bosses 2, 7% ahead of
Neighbors 2 and 92% ahead of
Office Christmas Party.
In the
UK, the Moms dropped 37% for a total $7.7M to date, on par with
Bad Moms, 48% ahead of
Horrible Bosses 2, 5% ahead of
Neighbors 2 and 104% ahead of
Office Christmas Party.
Australia/NZ added an estimated $874K to lift the running total to $6.8M. That’s 21% behind
Bad Moms, but tops all other comps.
Scandinavia is also outperforming the comedy sequel comps save for the first
Bad Moms. With a $2.3M cume, it’s 7% behind that pic.
Eastern Europe is looking at $2.09M, which is 48% ahead of the original, and also above the other comparable titles. The Middle East, France, Russia, Spain and more are still on deck for the STX pic in the coming weeks.
JIGSAW
Lionsgate’s 8th installment in the horror franchise crossed the $50M international mark this frame, after four weeks in release. The film carved out another
$4.1M in 74 markets and has grossed
$52.4M so far. The top plays are the UK ($6.5M), Russia ($5.1M), Venezuela ($4.9M), Germany ($4.9M) and France ($3.6M). The next majors to release are Spain and Brazil on Thursday this week.
COCO
Disney
Disney/Pixar’s
Coco became the
No. 1 movie ever (in local currency) at the Mexican box office last week, and enjoyed another good weekend this session — its 4th. The animated Day of the Dead-themed pic strummed up another
$4M in the frame and has lifted the cume to
$48.8M.
Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina, the film opens in the U.S. on November 22, kicking off an extended global rollout. Next weekend notably includes China and Russia. France and Germany join at the end of the month and there are releases throughout January (with Japan taking the
Frozen Japan slot in March).
MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLES
IT (WB): $1.9M intl weekend ($1.7M from a strong Japan hold); $361.1M intl cume
Geostorm (WB): $1.6M intl weekend (53 markets); $172.7M intl cume
The Mountain Between Us (FOX): $1.17M intl weekend (22 markets); $24.4M intl cume
Marrowbone (UNI): $776K intl weekend (Spain only); $6.48M intl cume
Victoria And Abdul (UNI): $689K intl weekend (30 markets); $39.9M intl cume
The Snowman (UNI): $585K intl weekend (28 markets); $30.5M intl cume
My Little Pony: The Movie (LGF): $493K intl weekend (63 markets); $29.1M intl cume
