Products You May Like
In its third weekend, Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continued to reign at the global and international box office. With a $32.1M offshore frame (-53%), the sequel has an overseas total of $308M for $675.6M worldwide through Sunday.
Before we look more closely at the hold on Wakanda Forever, however, attention turns to Disney’ new entry this session, the animated Strange World which arrived with a thud at $9.2M in 43 overseas markets and $27.8M globally, including the domestic five-day holiday.
Strange World is original animated IP that, as we came into the weekend, was eyeing a $25M offshore start and ended up worlds away from that.
The film about a family of explorers entered the overseas landscape with no holidays to boost it and the World Cup acting as a distraction while also skipping several markets. Last June, Disney chose to forgo a theatrical release in France as a stance against the market’s archaic windowing system. Then as we reported last week, the studio preemptively opted out of theatrical in more than 20 international markets where the movie’s LGBTQ+ content would have very likely forced demands for edits.
By taking this preemptive step with Strange World in such areas as the Middle East, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam and East and West Africa, we noted coming in that Disney was likely leaving money on the table. Last year’s Encanto did just under $25M in the same markets where Strange World is not releasing — and that itself was lower than it might have been given Encanto went out when many of those areas were battling Omicron.
Ultimately, Strange World was consistent in that it just didn’t click anywhere. The top market was the UK at $1M, followed by Spain, Mexico and Italy with $700K apiece and Germany at $600K. The movie is eyeing a potential $40M finish overseas. See Anthony’s take on why it didn’t go straight to streaming everywhere.
In other new play, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical had a strong No. 1 launch in the UK with $5M. Sony and TriStar Pictures released the film there while Netflix has it in the U.S. and other markets beginning December 25.
The new take on the Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical nabbed a 45% share of the UK box office over the weekend, landing an estimated 50% ahead of Black Panther which is in its third weekend, and five times above Strange World.
At current exchange rates, Matilda’s opening is 60% ahead of The Greatest Showman and is set up for a long UK run.
Back in holdover play, Black Panther 2’s $308M international cume has exceeded the final gross of 15 MCU releases so far (excluding China and Russia and at current rates). It is currently running 5% below the original Black Panther and 6% behind Thor: Love and Thunder while 7% ahead of Thor: Ragnarok and 16% above The Batman.
On Monday, BP2 will pass Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore to become the No. 7 highest-grossing movie of 2022. It is still eyeing an international finish around $415M.
The Top 5 markets to date are the UK ($32.3M), Mexico ($29.3M), France ($25.2M), Brazil ($16.2M) and Korea ($15.9M). The global IMAX total is $43.5M.
Searchlight’s The Menu served up another $5.4M from 41 markets this frame, taking the offshore tally to $14.8M and global to $33.5M. The drop from opening was 39% including a 30% jump in Indonesia and soft dips in Mexico, Germany and Italy. The UK leads play at $2.4M.
In local play, thriller The Night Owl bowed No. 1 in Korea with $6.1M while Japanese title Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween raised its China cume to RMB 120.5M ($16.8M) after two frames and before One Piece Film Red travels there on December 2.
MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE
Black Adam (WB): $2.8M intl weekend (76 markets); $215.1M intl cume/$378M global
*Bones and All (WB): $2.1M intl weekend (28 markets); $2.1M intl cume/$5.8M global
She Said (UNI): $1.3M intl weekend (48 markets); $2.1M intl cume/$6.4M global
Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (SNY): $1.1M intl weekend (48 markets); $37.1M intl cume/$82.3M global
Ticket to Paradise (UNI): $615K intl weekend (79 markets); $96.8M intl cume/$162M global
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (UNI): $588K intl weekend (50 markets); $16.7M intl cume/$27.2M global
Smile (PAR): $550K intl weekend (46 markets); $110.2M intl cume/$215.7M global
Armageddon Time (UNI): $528K intl weekend (9 markets); $2.86M intl cume/$4.7M global
*Denotes new