WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING JULY 28, 2024

  WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING JULY 28, 2024 

A film's total gross for the entire previous week is followed by its worldwide total to date.

1. Deadpool Vs. Wolverine -- $444m worldwide debut

2. Despicable Me 4 –– $104m/$678m ww

3. Successor -- $100m/$322m ww

4. Twisters -- $85m/$221m ww

5. Inside Out 2 –– $63m/$1,506m ww

6. Longlegs -- $22m/$78m ww

7. A Place Called Silence -- $17m/$176m ww

8. A Quiet Place: Day One –– $13m/$254m ww

9. Under One Person aka I Am Nobody aka The Outcast -- $13m ww debut

10. Raayan -- $9m ww

11. Bad Boys: Ride or Die –– $7m/$395m ww

12. Bad Newz (Indian-Punjab comedy) -- $7m/$11m ww

13. The Count of Monte Cristo – $6m/$46m ww

14. Fly Me To The Moon -- $6m/$37m ww

15. Decoded -- $6m ww debut

16. Your Name (2017 Jap ani) -- $5m/$396m ww

17. Kalki 2898 A.D. –– $5m/$131m ww

18. Blue Lock -- $4m/$17m ww

19. Escape -- $3m/$16m ww

20. Detective Conan: The Multimillion... -- $1m/$126m ww

21. MaXXXine -- $1m/$19m ww

22. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes –– $1m/$397m ww

23. Kinds of Kindness -- $1m/$12m ww

24. Project Silence -- $1m/$5m ww

25. The Fabulous Four -- $1m ww debut

1. Deadpool Vs. Wolverine -- reported $200mb means it's a hit from the start.

4. Twisters -- a $150mb means I'm still not calling this a hit. Wait for the third weekend. 

9. Under One Person aka I Am Nobody aka The Outcast-- this is a Chinese/Japanese collaboration based on a Chinese webcomic about a young man attacked by zombies in a cemetery who discovers the martial arts his grandfather taught him is rare and highly prized and bad people want it. Go! The title variation is due to a Chinese title into Japanese into English, no doubt. "The Outcast" is the subtitle, which ComScore used as the film's title. It was turned into an anime series with five seasons and counting. The film is a live action adaptation. 

10. Raayan -- this is a Tamil action drama from India with a young man training himself all his life to get revenge for the murder of his parents. He gets his chance! 

12. Bad Newz -- the Punjabi comedy is a modest grosser but it's likely the budget was v small too. One more example of how almost every part of the Indian movie business is working except for the Hindi/Bollywood sector. 

13. The Count of Monte Cristo -- this lavish French production pops onto ComScore with $4m, so we get an update on its box office. It's now grossed $46m, which is also the reported budget for the film, the biggest budgeted French film of the year. Like the two-part The Three Musketeers, it enjoys very good reviews but so-so box office. A pity it can't score more worldwide. 

15. Decoded -- a Chinese thriller set during WW II when an autistic math whiz is recruited to break codes for a secret spy agency. 

17. Blue Lock -- this is a Japanese anime film based on a manga about a rigorous program to create the greatest striker in soccer/football history. It opened in Japan in April, now hits China and is set for the US later. The manga has sold 30m copies and won awards, been turned into a three plays (they each ran for last than a week, so how is that a thing?), a prequel novel and an upcoming video game or two. 

24. The Fabulous Four -- it's Bridesmaids for the senior set, with Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph in on the hijinks. 

Bold: movies that have tripled their reported budgets.

This makes them likely hits from box office alone.

ww: worldwide

mb: a film's budget so $50mb means it cost $50m to make.

Below is an analysis of the box office, notes on individual films and at the bottom an explanation of the chart and how it is derived. 

ANALYSIS 

And the highest grossing animated film of all time is...not Inside Out 2. That film is a triumph and indeed  smash hit. But the 2019 version of The Lion King is the highest grossing animated film of all time. Yes, it's designed to look photo-realistic but other than a shot of the sun at the very beginning, it is entirely animated. Pretending it is "different" than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because it looks live action would be like saying Toy Story isn't hand-drawn animation and therefore belongs in a different category than say Pinocchio. They're all animated and the top-grossing animated film of all time is The Lion King (2019) with $1.663 billion. Inside Out 2 is a very impressive #2 with $1.506 billion. Heck, it grossed $63m last week so if it legs out, maybe it will gross another $158m (unlikely, perhaps) and become #1. What would the pundits who got it wrong say then? See, this is why you come here! 

Deadpool Vs. Wolverine set all sorts of records, of course and is off to a terrific start. I'm calling it a hit right off the bat because it opened so strong and has great audience scores and no competition for a while. I am not calling Twisters a hit yet because it got slapped down by DvW and the third weekend hold will tell the tale. It needs to double the box office it's already made to get to $450m and be considered a hit from theatrical box office alone. The movie will be fine financially when all is said and done, but it needs to hold well to score a bold-face win from me.  

We mentioned that Despicable Me is the first animated film franchise to hit $5 billion. So it's only fair to say the MCU–the Marvel Cinematic Universe–hit $30 billion and is the first franchise to do that, not adjusting for inflation. That is hugely impressive and most of the films in the MCU have been hits on their own, a Pixar-level of success rarely seen. It took 34 films, so they're almost averaging $900 million per movie. I would point out that the Despicable Me movies will get close to $7 billion with just six movies, an even more impressive per-film average. And Star Wars? Its 11 live action films grossed about $940m per film. So the MCU has competitors. But can they do it for another 20 to 25 films? Aye, there's the rub. 

Here's one more reminder: people can't go to the movies if you don't release them in theaters. 2024 is scheduled to have 25% fewer releases than 2019 (and roughly 20% fewer than the average number of releases between 2016-2019). That means if it's a normal year, we should expect  the total box office to be about $8.4 billion for North America. That will be a great result. And if we release a good healthy mix of movies in 2025, box office can be right back at $10b to $11b. If you release them, they will come. 

NOTES (info on new movies and international flicks not on most people's radar)

1. Deadpool Vs. Wolverine -- reported $200mb means it's a hit from the start.

4. Twisters -- a $150mb means I'm still not calling this a hit. Wait for the third weekend. 

9. Under One Person aka I Am Nobody aka The Outcast-- this is a Chinese/Japanese collaboration based on a Chinese webcomic about a young man attacked by zombies in a cemetery who discovers the martial arts his grandfather taught him is rare and highly prized and bad people want it. Go! The title variation is due to a Chinese title into Japanese into English, no doubt. "The Outcast" is the subtitle, which ComScore used as the film's title. It was turned into an anime series with five seasons and counting. The film is a live action adaptation. 

10. Raayan -- this is a Tamil action drama from India with a young man training himself all his life to get revenge for the murder of his parents. He gets his chance! 

12. Bad Newz -- the Punjabi comedy is a modest grosser but it's likely the budget was v small too. One more example of how almost every part of the Indian movie business is working except for the Hindi/Bollywood sector. 

13. The Count of Monte Cristo -- this lavish French production pops onto ComScore with $4m, so we get an update on its box office. It's now grossed $46m, which is also the reported budget for the film, the biggest budgeted French film of the year. Like the two-part The Three Musketeers, it enjoys very good reviews but so-so box office. A pity it can't score more worldwide. 

15. Decoded -- a Chinese thriller set during WW II when an autistic math whiz is recruited to break codes for a secret spy agency. 

17. Blue Lock -- this is a Japanese anime film based on a manga about a rigorous program to create the greatest striker in soccer/football history. It opened in Japan in April, now hits China and is set for the US later. The manga has sold 30m copies and won awards, been turned into a three plays (they each ran for last than a week, so how is that a thing?), a prequel novel and an upcoming video game or two. 

24. The Fabulous Four -- it's Bridesmaids for the senior set, with Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph in on the hijinks. 

THE CHART AND HOW IT IS COMPILED 

Here's a week by week tracking of box office around the world. It is compiled by pulling from every possible source: ComScore, Box Office Mojo, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, charts for countries like China and India and South Korea, individual stories in trade or general interest newspapers, Wikipedia and anywhere else discussing box office around the world. 

The weekly charts contain the total gross for every movie in theaters around the world during those seven days. If a movie opens on a Thursday, we include all the box office from Thursday through Sunday. If it opens on a Tuesday night, we cover all six days. If it opens on a Sunday (as some movies do in India or wherever, depending on holidays), then we include the box office for that one day. If a movie was released before the current week, we include the box office for all seven days. Why ignore the box office from Monday through Thursday, as most charts do when tallying the latest weekend and focusing on new releases? 

How do we arrive at this number? We take the total worldwide box office we have for a movie, subtract from it the previous week's total worldwide box office...and that's how much it made during the past seven days. Naturally, territories and movies sometimes fall through the cracks but we are as up to date as we can be, given our dependence on other outlets for the basic info. 

First I list box office on every film we can from around the world. Any movie grossing at least US $1 million will be on here if we get info on it. Then I give some thoughts on the box office overall and individual films. That's followed by notes where I give info on any movies not from Hollywood. So Despicable Me 4 you know. But a small Korean comedy or French drama? That I'll identify for you as best I can. 

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