WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 15, 2024
A film's gross for the last seven days is followed by its total worldwide gross.
1. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–$118m / $264m worldwide total
2. Speak No Evil–$21m worldwide debut
3. Deadpool & Wolverine–$18m / $1.305b ww
4. Alien: Romulus–$17m / $331m ww
5. It Ends With Us–$16m / $325m ww
6. Veteran 2: I, The Executioner–$15m ww debut
7. The Greatest of All Time–$13m /$47m ww
8. Coraline–$12m / $185m
9. Despicable Me 4–$10m / $940m
10. Stand By Me: Doraemon 3–$10m ww debut
11. Stree 2–$6m / $97m
12. Chong Sheng aka Go For Broke–$6m / $60m
13. Am I Racist?–$5m ww debut
14. Reagan–$4m / $23m
15. Twisters–$3m / $369m
16. Trap–$3m / $81m
17. Afraid–$3 / $11m
18. The Killer's Game–$3m ww debut
19. Inside Out 2–$2m / $1.677b
20. Successor–$2m / $473m
21. How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies–$2m / $51m
22. Blink Twice–$2m / $40m
23. The Forge–$2m / $24m
24. The Crow (2024)–$2m / $21m
25. Like A Rolling Stone aka Chu Zao de Jue Zin–$2m ww debut
26. A Frozen Rage aka Yi Xue Qian Chi–$2m ww debut
27. God's Not Dead: In God We Trust–$2m ww debut
28. Pilot–$1m / $32m
29. Untouchable–$1m / $25m
30. The Front Room–$1m / $2.6m ww
31. Enjoy Yourself aka Zhu Ni Xing Fu–$1m ww debut
31. All Suspects–$1m ww debut
Bold: movies that have or likely will triple their reported budgets. That's my standard for a movie being a box office hit from theatrical alone. Many films will be profitable for a studio even if they don't triple their reported budget, but it's a good marker to indicate a big hit.
ANALYSIS
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is tearing it up...and Halloween is more than one month away! We're going to be singing "MacArthur Park" for a long time to come, which is fine by me. Director Tim Burton is surprisingly dependable at the box office. I say "surprisingly" because creatively he delivers a lot more misses than hits. But commercially? You can trust him to deliver an audience. Even when the film underperforms (Dumbo being the most recent example and, ironically, one of his best artistically), it's not a disaster. The vast majority of his movies triple their budget or come close enough. You have to go all the way back to Mars Attacks! to find a genuine flop. (That cost maybe $80mb or so and grossed $100m.) So definitely let Burton direct what he wants, ideally with a budget around $100m. Your money is safe and chances are you'll do very well indeed. What's the upper limit on B2? $400m? $500m?
In Korea, Veterans 2 opened very strongly on what was once a big holiday weekend. It made $15m and topped the charts. The bad news is that this wasn't very difficult to do, since the #2 film (a cheap animated film) grossed about $300,000. That's it. So Korea is still desperate for more local films and hits from anywhere. India is having the same problem. Bollywood–the Hindi film industry–is especially hurting with just two hits for the entire year. And the big budget Tamil film The Greatest of All Time is proving to not be the greatest of all time and a certain money-loser. Hollywood films aren't working too well overseas either in these markets; whether they've been given a proper chance in China and India and Korea is another question.
I had a close call with Coraline. After boldly saying it should be considered a hit since it held on strongly in its second weekend...it started losing screens and such. But the $60mb film is now at $185m after a week where it discovered another $12m. Had it opened in China? No, so not sure where the money came from. But often box office trickles in slowly from some out of the way places, even in this modern day and age. So it has officially tripled its reported budget and is a hit from theatrical alone. Many films that never show an official profit and never triple their reported budget are actually quite profitable for the studios or Hollywood would have shut down long ago. But it's nice to see a genuinely great movie like Coraline enjoy the wide audience and acclaim it always deserved.
Here's a reminder about the annual box office. Studios are releasing about 25% fewer movies in 2024 than they did during the 2016-2019 pre-COVID era. That means we can reasonably expect the annual North American box office to reach about 25% less than that era's average box office. So look for about $8.3b for the year and call that a return to business as usual. Pump up the releases of all types of movies in 2025 and we have every reason to expect box office back in $10b-$11b territory.
NOTES
mb= a film's budget in millions of US dollars
1. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–a reported $100mb and good audience response means this is a winner right off the bat. Hardly a slam dunk, by the way. The original came out almost 35 years ago and only grossed $78m worldwide. So the sequel cost more than the entire first film's worldwide gross! That's not a recipe for success, normally. But the original only cost $15mb to make and everyone knew it enjoyed a long afterlife, thanks to tv reruns, Halloween, the Broadway musical and so on. Still, gamble it was and the gamble paid off.
2, Speak No Evil–James McAvoy stars in a horror film costing a reported $15mb. Horror travels well, McAvoy is a draw, the film grossed more than its budget on opening week. Winner!
5. It Ends With Us–a $25mb
8. Coraline–$60mb for 2019 3-D classic directed by Henry Selick and based on Neil Gaiman novel.
9. Despicable Me 4–$100mb, though by now Steve Carell & Co. must be getting serious bumps
10. Stand By Me: Doraemon 3–a Japanese animated film opening in China one week before its Sept 19 debut in Japan. The Doraemon franchise is vast and impressive, all based on a manga launched in 1969 about a robotic cat who travels back in time to help a little boy. They churn out new animated films roughly every March, among other properties. Those number more than 40 films and counting. But the Stand By Me movies are a separate thing and the first two were notably more successful than the usual low-budget fare and presumably have a bigger budget. The first grossed about $150m ww and the second about $80m ww, so that's a big step down. Still, they don't rush these out: it's been four years since the second "big" Doraemon film. So we shall see....
11. Stree 2–the reported budget varies from $6m to $15m, but with $81m so far, this Hindi supernatural comedy is a hit.
12. Chong Sheng aka Go For Broke–Chinese drama about undercover cop in drug gang.
14. Reagan–$25mb for adoring biopic of the President, which is narrated by two former KGB agents!
15. Twisters–$150mb keeps this from hit territory.
16. Trap–$30mb and it's at $81m ww so I'm thisclose to calling it a hit. Clearly, the film is another profitable winner for director M. Night Shyamalan.
17. Afraid–$12mb for AI horror flick starring John Cho.
18. The Killer's Game–Reported $30mb. An action comedy starring Dave Bautista as an assassin told he has a terminal illness. He hires someone to take him out painlessly, discovers the prognosis was a false alarm but the assassin is determined to take him out anyway.
18. Inside Out 2–$200mb. With $1.666b, it passes 2019's The Lion King to be the highest grossing animated film of all time.
19. Successor–Chinese comedy about poor family depending on school-age son for their future.
20. How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies–Thai weepie about grandson bonding with grandmother after moving in to her home with mercenary intentions. Everyone watching it cries at the end! The film was at $34m worldwide before opening in China. As of this week, it's made $15m in that market.
21. Blink Twice–Usually reported with a $20mb, which sounds right. Though some insist $80mb because of delays.
22. The Forge–this faith-based film did better in its second week? Success! Reported $5mb.
23. The Crow (2024)–$50mb
24. Like A Rolling Stone aka Chu Zao de Jue Zin–this Chinese drama is about a woman in her 50s who breaks away (from a husband? family?) and starts to live for herself by driving around the country in a "self-guided tour." You know, a road trip. In China it's called Chu Zao de Jue Zin, which translates to Determination to Leave. That works, but the official English title is apparently Like A Rolling Stone, which is terrible and for a moment made me think the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet opened in China first.
25. A Frozen Rage aka Yi Xue Qian Chi–on the other hand, this Chinese comic drama is about a man who takes on a criminal gang of "oil thieves." (Gasoline thieves?) Why? Because their reckless behavior led to an accident that crippled his brother. So the official English title of A Frozen Rage kind of gets to the taking on the bad guys idea. But in Chinese it's called Yi Xue Qian Chi and that translates literally to Eat Before Medicine, which WTF? But hey, that lets you know it's more comedy than Erin Brockovich. (At least looking at the poster.) Don't worry. Both of these films will be gone in a blink.
26. God's Not Dead: In God We Trust–the fifth (!) film in the faith-based franchise, this time w our hero running for Congress. The first film was a phenomenon, grossing $65m worldwide. The second behaved like a classic, poorly made sequel cash-grab and grossed $25m. The third? $8m. The fourth? $1.1m. Hey, since this grossed $1.8m on its opening weekend, things are looking up?
27. Pilot–South Korean comedy about male pilot who poses as his sister after scandal so he can fly again.
28. Untouchable–Chinese crime drama that slipped under my radar. It's made $23m to date after opening on August 23. Gambling, violence, beautiful women...the usual.
29. The Front Room–horror film starring Brandy as a pregnant woman dealing with the mother in law from hell, perhaps literally.
30. Enjoy Yourself aka Zhu Ni Xing Fu–$1m ww debut
31. All Suspects–A Chinese comedy mystery a la Agatha Christie. A policeman takes a vacation at a B&B. When bodies begin to pile it, he discovers everyone is both a suspect and a detective.
THE CHART AND HOW IT IS COMPILED
This column is 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 anyone else discussing box office.
ComScore Weekly Global Box Office Chart
The weekly charts contain the total gross for every movie in theaters around the world during the last 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 every movie, with a focus on films 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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