International Relations
Interesting to take a look at Variety‘s report on the international box office…
Pirates 3 is now the biggest grosser outside of North America of the trilogy.
Potter 5 now looks like it will be the #3 Potter film worldwide.
The Simpsons has $230 million international, significantly more than at home.
Transformers has done surprisingly well overseas, with $328 million, topping the domestic gross.
Life Free or Die Hard has grossed $204 million overseas, making it the 7th highest grosser of the summer worldwide, leapfrogging Knocked Up and Ratatouille, though The Rat is out in fewer than half their international markets and should jump past DH4 before year end.
Ocean’s 13 is closing in on $300 million worldwide.
Why does Disney hold back on Ratatouille for so long? Is this common practice for their animated fare?
I can’t imagine that Knocked Up will have big international legs.
Another movie that has made significantly more than it did in the U.S.: Hostel 2, closing in on $60m worldwide (sorry to bring up old wounds).
In Thailand, school isn’t out until early October. But we’ve had Ratatouille for a few weeks now. (which is unusal as we normally have to wait until October for Pixar movies.)
Aladdin, as Ployp alluded to, many kids films are saved for school holidays. What’s annoying is when Ratatouille opened in America was school holidays here, yet we have to wait until the end of September (I think) to see it. Grrr. During the school holidays (er, there’s four lots of them, three of which are two weeks plus the longer one over Christmas if our system is different) we’re usually inundated with a back catalogue of kids films. Amazing holds for Ratatoiulle in France and Japan though, no matter what the trends are.
Perhaps a reason for The Simpsons Movie‘s big international is that it rates better? I know in Australia it routinely makes it into the Top 20 programs each week whereas in America it’s barely in the Top 60 (right? or did I read wrong). It’s made $26mil here, which would be the equivelant of $260mil in America. Harry Potter has made $33mil.
One of the anomolies of Australia’s box office is the European film As It Is In Heaven is #15 after being on the chart for 54 weeks. It was nominated for an Oscar a couple of years back I think. For some reason it’s just still playing. Crazy.
Not sure why you think the Transformers international gross is surprising. The toy line started in Japan, and the film is a big-budget action/sci-fi romp–exactly the type of film that typically does well globally.
“Perhaps a reason for The Simpsons Movie’s big international is that it rates better?”
That is correct. Simpsons is an excellent overseas TV property for Fox. It’s a big reason why the show is still on the air.
Hey David,
I don’t know if you’ve seen this but the-numbers.com now has a weekly DVD sales chart. Is this the start of something? Will DVD sales numbers evolve into the same craziness that surrounds boxoffice numbers? If these numbers were out there more, how would that change the residuals debate? Or would it even?
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/thisweek.php
There have been DVD/VHS sales/rental charts for a very long time, haven’t there? It’s just that in the last couple of years people have realised sometimes there’s plenty more cash in these areas than there can be in the cinema.
I’ve seen plenty of DVD sales charts but never one that included actual amounts of money made. Usually they just list what the top selling DVD’s are for the week and maybe how many units were sold if it was a particularly high number which I suspect were studios bragging. But DVD sales numbers is something new to me. DVD’s being cash cows hasn’t been a secret, but the actual money numbers have been kept pretty close to the cuff. Even if this list is just an educated guess, where is all this heading? Is Katie Couric going to be ‘reporting’ DVD sales numbers on the evening news as if it was the weekend box office? Watercooler talk, “Man, Wild Hogs made $50 million in DVD sales.”