WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

A film's gross for the last seven days is followed by its total worldwide gross. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–$146m worldwide debut 

The Greatest of all Time–$34m worldwide debut 

Alien: Romulus–$30m / $314m worldwide total 

Deadpool & Wolverine–$29m / $1.287b 

It Ends With Us–$25m / $309m 

Despicable Me 4–$16m / $930m  

Blink Twice–$16m / $38m  

Reagan–$12m / $19m 

Stree 2–$10m / $91m 

Inside Out 2–$9m / $1.675b 

Twisters–$9m / $366m 

Chong Sheng aka Go For Broke–$8m / $54m 

The Crow (2024)–$8m / $19m 

The Forge–$6m / $22m 

Successor–$5m / $471m 

Trap–$5m / $78m 

Coraline–$4m / $173m 

How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies–$4m / $49m 

Untouchable–$4m / $24m  

Detective Conan: Million Dollar Pentagram–$2m / $166m 

Bai She: Fu Sheng aka White Snake: Afloat–$6m / $57m 

Harold and the Purple Crayon–$2m / $27m 

The Hedgehog–$2m / $20m 

The Front Room–$1.6m ww debut 

IM Hero The Stadium–$1.5m / $5m 

Upstream–$1m / $51m 

Pilot–$1m / $31m 

Afraid–$1 / $8m  

1992–$1m / $2.5m 

My Dearest Fu Bao–$1m 

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 enjoyed an excellent opening during the sometimes sleepy week right after Labor Day. It almost set a record, capping off a summer that didn't suck as much as people feared. And what did the trick? All types of movies: superhero franchises like Deadpool & Wolverine, family fare that also leaned on franchises like Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 and unexpected successes like the domestic abuse drama It Ends With Us starring Blake Lively turning into a worldwide smash. And yes, low budget horror flicks, Nicolas Cage freaking folk out with Longlegs, surprising success with reissues like Coraline and rolls of the dice that didn't pan out like Kevin Costner's Horizon and the such. Because it takes all types of films for a healthy box office. You gotta have surprise flops like Horizon if you want surprise hits like It Ends With Us or Longlegs. 

Disney helped. It opened five movies this year, so far, and just passed $4mb worldwide. The lucky films are of course Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus and The First Omen. All were hits except for The First Omen (part of that absurd over-pay for rights to the Omen franchise) and even it grossed almost $60m on a $30mb and got pretty good reviews. The Mouse House is franchise heavy and not launching originals into the world, but who's complaining? 

Thanks to Variety, I learned Korean concert film IM Hero The Stadium, starring pop idol Lim Young-Woong, was ranked 9th in ticket sales but #2 in grosses in that market, due to premium pricing. Thanks IMAX! In general, though, growing box office by jacking up prices is a bad long-term strategy. 

I had a close call with Coraline. After boldly saying it should now 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 $173m after a week where it grossed another $4m.  As in horseshoes, that's close enough to say yes, it tapped the magical "triple your reported budget if we believe your reported budget is fairly accurate" metric to call a film 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

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.   

The Greatest of all Time–an Indian Tamil sci-fi movie starring Vijay, it involves rogue clones or something and cost $50mb, a big big number for Indian films. Audiences will need to ignore critics for this one to become a hit. But Vijay may not care so much: he's left movies and launched a regional political party to push back against the BJP and its fascist attempt to demonize Muslims while ending India's long, great history of secular government. At least, I think that's what he's doing, as far as I can tell.

Alien: Romulus–a reported $80mb 

Deadpool & Wolverine– a $200mb  

It Ends With Us–a $25mb   

Despicable Me 4–$100mb, though by now Steve Carell & Co. must be getting serious bumps  

Blink Twice–Usually reported with a $20mb, which sounds right. Though some insist $80mb because of delays.  

Reagan–$25mb for adoring biopic of the President, which is narrated by two former KGB agents! 

Stree 2–the reported budget varies from $6m to $15m, but with $81m so far, this Hindi supernatural comedy is a hit.

Inside Out 2–$200mb. With $1.666b, it passes 2019's The Lion King to be the highest grossing animated film of all time. 

Twisters–$150mb keeps this from hit territory.  

The Crow (2024)–$50mb  

Chong Sheng aka Go For Broke–Chinese drama about undercover cop in drug gang.

The Forge–this faith-based film did better in its second week? Reported $5mb.  

Trap–$30mb so it got quite close to hit status and will certainly be profitable thanks to $73m haul. 

Successor–Chinese comedy about poor family depending on school-age son for their future. 

Coraline–$60mb for 2019 3-D classic directed by Henry Selick and based on Neil Gaiman novel. 

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. 

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. 

Detective Conan: Million Dollar Pentagram–27th film in Japanese animated franchise. Stood at $128m before opening in China. 

Bai She: Fu Sheng aka White Snake: Afloat–Chinese animated film, threequel to White Snake and Green Snake. 

Harold and the Purple Crayon–$40mb seems suspiciously low, but it's still a flop. 

The Hedgehog–A Chinese drama about a stuttering and rebellious (but hot!) teen and his mentally ill grandfather. Hopefully they'll make a sequel and call it The Fox. 

The Front Room–horror film starring Brandy as a pregnant woman dealing with the mother in law from hell, perhaps literally. 

IM Hero The Stadium–Concert film starring SK singer Lim Young-woong. 

Upstream–Chinese film, I think. Drawing a blank on getting info about this one.  

Pilot–South Korean comedy about male pilot who poses as his sister after scandal so he can fly again. 

Afraid–$12mb for AI horror flick. 

1992–Inspiring film about shop owner fighting to protect his son during LA uprising.  

My Dearest Fu Bao–heart-tugging Korean documentary about the panda Fu Bao that, as will happen, captured the heart of the nation.

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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