Movie Box Review

John Carter joins the worldwide box office chart, ranked at #13 out of 44 wide-release films over the past three months.  We are currently estimating John Carter could total $75 million in North America, but the overseas total to date is already $70 million.  If the overseas total ends up around $125 million, the film could end up with a worldwide total just behind Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, moving up to a #6 or #7 ranking.  Click "read more" to see the updated chart.

The other films opening this weekend, Silent House and A Thousand Words, are dead last in the worldwide ranking, each with little chance of moving their overseas total above the current level of zero.

The Lorax has only grossed $2 million total to date overseas, in what appears to be an extremely slow rollout beyond North America. 

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax joins the worldwide box office chart this week, already ranked #7 out of 45 films released the last three months, but that ranking is based on a current zero tally of overseas receipts.   Based on recent animated films, we would expect The Lorax to gross somewhat more than its domestic total overseas.  Despicable Me grossed $543 million worldwide ($251 million domestic and $292 million overseas).  How to Train Your Dragon grossed $495 million worldwide ($218 million domestic and $277 million overseas).  Another Dr Seuss animated adaptation, Horton Hears a Who!, was more of a minor hit overall but resonated worldwide: $297 million total ($154 million domestic and $143 million overseas).  If Lorax hits our estimated domestic final of $227 million, we would give it an estimated $250 million overseas for a worldwide total just short of $480 million and just behind Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (at #3 among recent releases).

Project X finds itself in the middle of the pack on the worldwide list, at #29.  We estimate a $30 million overseas gross when all is said and done, which would place it at #20, just behind We Bought a Zoo worldwide.  

Click "read more" for the updated chart.

Four new films opened this weekend in North America and have joined our worldwide box office tracking chart.  Three of the four are toward the bottom of the chart and are destined to stay there.  The other film, Act of Valor, is currently in the middle of the pack but should rise as moderate overseas box office comes in.  We are currently projecting Act of Valor to hit $68 million in domestic box office, and the current zero overseas tally should go to about $40 million given the track record of movies about the U.S. military.  That would put the film ranked around 16th or 17th among the films released in the last three months.  (Click "read more" to see the latest chart.) 

In contrast, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, Wanderlust and Gone will not receive much -- if any -- box office overseas.  Tyler Perry's films generally receive no international distribution at all, while bombs like Wanderlust and Gone do not visit foreign theaters in almost all territories. 

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island continues to do brisk business overseas, now up to $159 million outside North America to go along with the projected $118 million domestic final.  The film has an outside shot of reaching $300 million worldwide.  The Vow and Safe House remain in the low-$30 million range overseas.

Three films join the worldwide box office tracking chart this weekend.  With a profile similar to Tintin's (very good overseas appeal but limited domestic interest), The Secret World of Arrietty is just outside of the top 10 movies over the last three months.  The anime import from Japan has grossed $126 million overseas, but we are projecting it maxes out at $25 million in North America.  This Means War has grossed $11 million overseas to date, and maybe it gets to $45 million or so internationally to go along with the $49 million final domestic tally we are projecting.  Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has no overseas revenue yet.  It might reach $85 million overseas (the first Ghost Rider took in $113 million overseas) to go along with our projected $58 million domestic final.

The Vow and Safe House both roughly doubled their overseas gross, to $23 million and $20 million, respectively.  But Journey 2 remains the international player from last weekend's crop, thanks to its overseas head start.  The sequel is now up to $128 million overseas, on its way to matching the $140 million overseas total for Journey to the Center of the Earth in July 2008. 

And how about The Descendants, now sitting at $156 million projected worldwide. Not bad for a lower-budget, serious movie without special effects, 3D, explosions or comic book superheroes.

Four new movies join the worldwide box office chart this weekend, with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island being the early standout.  Released overseas a week before this weekend's North American opening, Journey 2 already has an overseas total of $75 million to date, nearly matching our total domestic projection of $79 million.  The first in the series, Journey to the Center of the Earth (released July 11, 2008 also by Warner Brothers), made it to just under $242 million worldwide (about $102 million domestic and $140 million overseas).  Journey 2 seems destined for a lower domestic total but a similar international haul.  Click "read more" to see the updated weekly chart.

The Vow and Safe House both have a relatively slow start overseas, each with $10 million to date.  Although both films are headed for similar domestic final grosses, we'll give the slight edge to The Vow overseas.  Recent successful romantic comedies have generally matched their domestic gross overseas although The Notebook was an exception (Valentine's Day: $110 million/ $106 million domestic/ overseas, Just Go With It: $103 million/ $112 million, He's Just Not That Into You: $94 million/ $85 million,  The Notebook: $81 million/ $35 million).  We'll give The Vow an overseas target of $110 million, for a final worldwide target of $226 million. 

In contrast, recent successful Denzel Washington action films domestically have somewhat under-performed overseas with the notable exception of American Gangster (The Book of Eli: $95 million/ $62 million, Training Day: $77 million/ $28 million, Man on Fire: $78 million/ $52 million, American Gangster: $130 million/ $136 million).  We'll give Safe House an overseas target of $80 million, for a final worldwide target of $194 million.

The re-release of Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace 3D has grossed $21 million overseas to date. 

The latest worldwide box office rankings are charted below.  Among the new releases this weekend, Chronicle sits in the middle of the list with $78 million worldwide to date ($65 million estimated final domestic and an early total to date overseas of $13 million).  The movie will probably work its way to just over $100 million worldwide.  The next level down is The Woman in Black ($58 million estimated final domestic and no overseas receipts yet).  The Daniel Radcliffe horror film will probably finish just under $100 million worldwide.  And finally toward the bottom of the list is Big Miracle ($30 million estimated final domestic gross with no overseas money to date and probably little prospect for growing that number).

Updated Worldwide Box Office figures below.  Girl with the Dragon Tattoo now closing in on $200 million worldwide. 

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 moves past the $700 million worldwide mark, with $421 million overseas to date.  Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol  edges past $550 million worldwide with $337 million overseas. 

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is now a $450 million worldwide picture, while Adventures of Tintin has an outside shot of hitting $400 million worldwide, despite its puny $82 million domestic gross.  

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol has moved up to a $320 million overseas tally, bringing the worldwide total to $554 million.  The fourth M:I is now the worldwide leader of the franchise.  Mission: Impossible 2 grossed $546.4 million ($215.4 million domestic and $331.0 million overseas), Mission: Impossible grossed $457.7 million ($181.0 million domestic and $276.7 million overseas) and Mission: Impossible 3 grossed $397.8 million ($134.0 million domestic and $263.8 million overseas).

Adventures of Tintin has now grossed almost $280 million overseas.  Although Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows has a lower overseas total, its domestic superior domestic total is keeping it ahead of Tintin in the worldwide race. 

Updated international figures follow.  Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol is surging, as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and especially Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is just getting going.

Click "read more" for the complete chart.

International box office continues to bail out American movies released late this year.  While Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 can legitimately be called a hit domestically and abroad, Adventures of Tintin and Real Steel are both major hits only because of business outside North America. And Puss in Boots would have been a slight disappointment given its genre were it not for a very healthy international take.   

More recently, the oddly animated Arthur Christmas is being saved from complete dud status by an overseas total that is really starting to kick in.  Hugo, in contrast, has not seen many international dollars to bulk up its rather puny worldwide total. 

Because of the Christmas holiday, some of these overseas totals might be lagging.  This chart will be updated as necessary. 

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol opened with a narrow 425-theater preview domestically this weekend, but the fourth M:I opened in over two-thirds of the international markets this weekend and already has taken in $68 million overseas.  The other domestic openers this weekend had fairly limited international bookings the first weekend.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows posted $14 million overseas this weekend (mostly in the UK), an identical number to the overseas opening of Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

Adventures of Tintin has started to max out its overseas potential.  Now it is up to the North America release to push the film to $400 million worldwide.

Overseas box office show big gains for Puss in Boots and Real Steel, now at $142 million and $186 million overseas to date, respectively.  Both films are solidly in the top five films worldwide, approaching $300 million worldwide each.

New Year's Eve has $13 million overseas to date, but it only stands at $44 million worldwide when the estimated domestic total is factored in, well behind the $216 million worldwide total for Valentine's Day.  The other opener this weekend, The Sitter, has no overseas receipts yet and should not be much of a factor internationally at any point.

Click "read more" to see the latest international box office chart for recent releases.  Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is now over $600 million projected worldwide, while The Adventures of Tintin is closing in on $400 million, assuming it doesn't tank stateside.

With the downward adjustment in domestic box office and very limited overseas revenues, The Muppets movie is now slightly below the worldwide projected figure for Arthur Christmas. 

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is now closing in on $275 million overseas to date (close to the expected domestic final tally), as it approaches $600 million worldwide.  One level down, The Adventures of Tintin has broken $200 million overseas and could be a $400 million worldwide picture if it does at least decently here when it opens at Christmas. 

This week's openers are off to a slow release pattern overseas.  The Muppets looks like a $122 million domestic total and overseas has generated only $2 million so far.  In contrast, Arthur Christmas (playing in more markets) has grossed $22 million overseas but is looking like a more anemic $52 million domestically.  Hugo should play to a similar domestic haul ($49 million), although its overseas potential is difficult to assess as it has not started its international run.

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 debuts on the international box office chart with a very solid $400+ million worldwide mark.  The latest Twilight has an overseas total to date of $144 million already with an expected domestic final of $292 million.

Adventures of Tintin is now up to almost $190 million overseas, while Real Steel is starting to top out overseas at around $160 million.  In contrast, Puss in Boots is still stuck at a relatively sluggish $53 million overseas. 

The Worldwide Box Office revenue chart has been expanded to the Top 30 releases this week (currently the cut-off to make the list is about $150 million worldwide).  Through Sunday, The Smurfs have moved up to #8 and is closing in on $500 million worldwide ($144 million domestic and an incredible $345 million overseas).

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has crossed the $400 million mark but is stuck at #11.  Rise is going to need to find another $50 million overseas to displace Thor from #10, a tough task at this point in its release.


The Help now has $6 million overseas and finds itself at #26 worldwide.  With only $5 million more from overseas markets, it can move up to #24, but it is going to be hard to get much higher than that due to limited overseas potential overall.

At ShowBuzzDaily we look at the movie year in three parts: the soft Winter/Spring year-part from January through April, the strong Summer season from May-August, and the slow-starting but soon sizzling Fall/ Holiday season from September through December.  With the Summer season over, it is a good time to take stock of the year so far. 

The chart below summarizes the distribution of all wide-releases films in 2011 (between January and August) according to Worldwide box office revenue.  As we saw last week, the film business is heavily weighted toward strikeouts with a few homeruns and triples.  The ten films in the top two categories in the table are guaranteed huge profits, while the 40 films in the bottom two categories are sure to burn through a lot of cash.


                 Distribution of 2011 Films (through Sep 4)

                        #      (average - millions $)      Ovrseas
                      Films Worldwide  Domestic  Overseas  Multiple
Mega-hit ($750M+)        3    $1157      $325      $833     2.6
         ($400M-$749M)   7     $536      $183      $352     1.9
         ($200M-$399M)  11     $263      $129      $134     1.0
         ($100M-$199M)  15     $148       $83       $64     0.8
         ($75M-$99M)    15      $88       $41       $48     1.2
         ($35M-$74M)    18      $50       $38       $12     0.3
Bomb     ($0-$34M)      22      $21       $17        $4     0.2

A note on reading the chart above.  A total of 15 films this year have grossed between $75 and $99 million worldwide this year.  The average film in this group has averaged $88 million worldwide, with $41 million domestic and $48 million overseas.  (The numbers do not always add up because of rounding error.)  The 1.2 Overseas Multiple indicates films in this category do slightly better outside North America than in it.  In contrast, the 18 films in the $35-74 million group do about the same as $75-99 million films domestically but have virtually no overseas revenue (a 0.2 Overseas Multiple). 

Of course, the chart above looks at Hollywood as a whole, and does not take into account the fierce competition between the six major studios.  The chart below does just that by counting the number of films in each worldwide revenue category for each studio's slate so far in 2011.  Read on to see how each studio stacks up.  


                 Distribution of 2011 Films by Studio

                             DIS   FOX   PAR   SON   UNI   WB
Mega-hit ($750M+)             1     0     1     0     0     1 
         ($400M-$749M)        1     1     2     1     1     1
         ($200M-$399M)        0     2     3     4     1     1
         ($100M-$199M)        3     2     1     1     3     3
         ($75M-$99M)          0     1     1     2     2     5
         ($35M-$74M)          1     1     0     4     4     2
Bomb     ($0-$34M)            4     2     0     2     1     0

DISNEY -- The Mouse House has become a punching bag and a target for industry gossip of late.  At least one of the six majors has to be under-performing, struggling operation.  Kind of like how NBC is treated in the press, with "perennially fourth-place" always preceding the network's name.  As you can see, Disney has the highest number of films in the bottom ("Bomb") category.  Although it has three films in the $100s of millions worldwide, these films are just barely profitable or not profitable at all if the production budgets approach $100 million.  Most important, although Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides made it into the top category and Cars 2 landed in the strong second category, there are NO Disney titles in the $200-399 million range, a category that separates winners from losers during the year.

FOX -- 20th Century Fox had a fairly stable year so far, with an even distribution of films.  No mega-hits, but three films in the next two categories and limited number (three) in the bottom two categories.  

PARAMOUNT -- The Melrose studio has the best distribution of the six majors so far this year, thanks to some strong output from DreamWorks.  A mega-hit in the latest Transformers, as well as Kung Fu Panda and Thor in the second category.  What's most interesting for Paramount this year is the utter lack of bombs in the bottom two categories.  Zero.  But we still have a third of the year to go for things to even out.  But still, regardless of where the films came from or what the complicated co-financing deals were, this is a pretty good performance.

SONY -- The Culver City studio has released the most films so far this year (14 versus a low of 8 for Paramount), and it has the most sitting in the bottom two categories.  If there is a silver lining, more Sony clunkers broke $35 million than fell below that level, but that's a pretty lame compliment.  Although Sony managed to place four films in the $200-399 million tier, it only has one (The Smurfs) in the upper two categories (and it just barely makes it).  A disappointing but not disastrous showing.

UNIVERSAL -- Then there's Universal.  Not suffering quite the amount of abuse as Disney in the trades and gossip mill, its 2011 slate is heavily weighted toward the bottom end of the chart.  Only two Universal films (Fast Five and Bridesmaids) occupy the top THREE categories.  The rest of the slate is packed in the lower- to lower-middle categories.  With Comcast pulling the plug on many expensive projects, it will be interesting to see if a singles or doubles approach can really change its profile.  One doesn't want to spend money wildly on every project, but sometimes an expensive swing-for-the fences project or two will actually result in more homeruns to finance the inevitable mistakes.

WARNER BROTHERS -- Other than the final Harry Potter (and that is one BIG exception to make, I grant you), a rather quiet year so far for Warners.  Avoiding bombs very well, most of the slate, however, lands in that region where it is tough to make a profit.  But, of yeah, it had Harry Potter, and that covers up a lot of mediocrity. 

Of course, a movie's production budget has an incredible impact on profitability.  After all, profits (such as the are counted by creative Hollywood accounting rules) are based on a film by film basis and not arbitrary category averages.  For example, two films in the third category ($200-399 million worldwide) are near each other on the worldwide revenue ranking but worlds apart in terms of profit.  Bridesmaids is sitting at $281 million worldwide ($168 million domestic and $113 overseas), while Captain America: The First Avenger is at $339 million worldwide ($175 million domestic and $165 overseas).  The two films have similar domestic grosses but the international advantage clearly goes to Captain America.  However, which film is more profitable?  Bridesmaids was reportedly made for under $50 million, while Captain America was produced for at least $150 million and probably closer to $200 million.  Both films probably had between $75 and $100 million in worldwide marketing costs.  Nonetheless, Bridesmaids has the clear profit advantage, given its comedy genre and lack of special effects.  

We will look closer at film by film profitability in coming weeks (using close but not precise estimates of production budgets), but think of our studio scorecard as a 30,000 foot overview of the Hollywood landscape.  

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, already a billion dollar movie worldwide, is now closing in on a billion dollars overseas alone.  The estimated worldwide gross for the final Harry Potter film now stands at $1.275 billion, with an estimated final domestic gross of $375 million and overseas gross to date of $900 million.  Click "read more" to see the complete Top 25 worldwide box office chart.


The Smurfs has risen to #10 on the 2011 worldwide chart, with some more potential to go in overseas dollars.  However, it will be a tall order to rise to #9 and catch Thor.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is up to #13, and will probably march its way up the level of #10 and The Smurfs.

International box office results show that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 continues to surge: its overseas gross to date is now over $850 million and its estimated worldwide total exceeds $1.2 billion.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes now stands at #14, but it is just getting started overseas.  It is probably headed for the top 10 with something like $400 million worldwide.  And The Smurfs has risen to #12, probably destined for #9 or #10 ultimately.