Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Foreign Derby

The many varieties of animation (hand-drawn, cg, hybrid) continue to prosper in venues across the seas:

... [D]ominating the foreign circuit, 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" squeaked out its 10th consecutive round as the No. 1 film overseas, generating $51 million -- down just 15% from last weekend -- from 7,600 screens in 71 markets.

Overseas gross total for director James Cameron's record-setting blockbuster was $1.780 billion with its worldwide tally weighing in at $2.468 billion ...

And Rupert's other hybrid animated feature is churning out foreign coin for News Corp. as well:

... Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" hoisted it overseas cume to $215.5 million thanks to a $3.7 million weekend at 2,500 screens in 30 markets ...

Though Sony smothered its most recent animated feature a little too early stateside, the opus rolls on overseas:

... "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" drew $3.2 million on the weekend from 1,470 screens in 21 markets for an international cume (collected since last Sept. 16) of $107.7 million.

To date, Cloudy has fun up a worldwide total of $232.6 million.

Meantime, Green Froggy continues to hop right along:

No. 5 was Disney Animation's "The Princess and the Frog," which cashed in on school holidays in France and the U.K. and grossed $12.1 million from 3,397 screens in 40 territories. Overseas cume stands at $131.5 million. France, with about two-thirds of the country observing school vacations, generated $4.1 million -- up 9% from last weekend -- from 697 locations for a one-month market cume of $23.1 million ...

So will TP&TF be a money spinner after all revenue sources have reported in? You betchya. It's already grossed $234.2 million on a worldwide basis. After factoring in the little silver disks and product merchandising, it should perform satisifactorily.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So will TP&TF be a money spinner after all revenue sources have reported in? You betchya.

...Good, NOW will they bring back the Snow Queen and change the stupid title back? :)

(Or will it be like their phase with the Studio Ghibli anime, where they say, "Well, guess only people in Europe liked it"?)

Anonymous said...

"Or will it be like their phase with the Studio Ghibli anime, where they say, "Well, guess only people in Europe liked it"? "

------

European money, Japanese money, American money , it's all money in this global economy, right ? If the hand-drawn movies do better in Europe and Japan then who really cares as long as they make money ?

But Disney lusts after the bragging rights they get from big opening weekends and box-office records being set in America. Those big numbers are a lot sexier than having to qualify things with : "Well, yes, BUT in the long-run 'slow and steady wins the race' , and the truth is movies like The Princess & the Frog (and their spin-offs) are going to continue to generate income for the company in years to come."

Anonymous said...

Yes, but it's still a parallel--
Disney has one badly-marketed disaster, and refuses to ever get back on the horse again...Makes money overseas, and can't explain why the movie sells respectably in French and German markets, but sticks to overseas marketing rather than admit there might have been a mistake.
Since they're contractually tied to open the next Ghibli movie (on news of its popularity), they open it carefully, it becomes a hit, grabs the Oscar, and Disney is now 100% gung-ho about Ghibli films in the US again, since this one was clearly "responsible for it".

...Sound eerily familiar, Frog and Rapunzel fans? :)

Anonymous said...

If PatF is performing so "satisfactual", then someone needs to tell Disney that. Snow Queen is still in "turnaround" and not likely to get back into preproducton anytime soon. Fact is, 2009 was a very bad year, film-wise, for Diz, and the upcoming lineup for 2010 and beyond looks very iffy (what with Jungle Cruise and Black Hole and the Muppets and all). You can bet the Dreamworks crew isn't breaking a sweat over it.

Anonymous said...

Astro Boy is doing pretty well in the UK too. It debuted in 3rd place in its opening week, dropped to 10th, then bounced back up to 8th this past weekend. Which may prove that scheduling can make or break a film, no?

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