March 8-10, 2002

Around the World Round Up
by Kenan Bresnan

Japan is the only thing between The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and it looks to be a big one. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring fell 6% last weekend, but Monsters, Inc. climbed right past it for a 19% jump, which many films took last weekend. Ring's total there stands at $17.6 million while Inc's is still behind at $13.4 million, but The Fellowship need about $120 million from Japan alone to be within any chance of passing Potter in the international pool.

Monsters, Inc. seems to be capitalizing on its four Oscar nominations elsewhere around the world as well. In Spain it continued at the top spot for the fifth consecutive weekend, advancing to $10.5 million. With a sweet $10.2 million weekend the film's total has climbed to $164.2 million. It looks like its challenging the domestic's all ready impressive $252.6 million (and climbing).

The Lord of the Rings however is getting most of its cash from Japan currently with a $9.8 million frame for a blockbuster $477.3 million cumulation.

A Beautiful Mind capitalized on Russell Crowe's appearance in the film Down Under where it rang up $1.5 million on 320 after taking $1.2 million from sneak previews for a brilliant $2.7 million total. The biopic also turned in great numbers in Mexico ($1.3 million), Taiwan ($282,000 on 51), and Turkey ($275,000 on 60). The Ron Howard-helmed pic is having a little bit of trouble in Europe, however. In France the film dropped a considerable 45% last weekend and only has $2.6 million in 26 days. In the U.K. Mind is doing much better dropping only 32% for $4.2 million to date. in Germany the film dropped a trifling 7% for $3.4 million in 11 days. Also Italy's $6.3 million and Spain's $4.4 million (both in 17 days) are also impressive.

Purely from holdovers, Ocean's Eleven grossed an estimated $10.2 million from 2,081 engagements in a mind-boggling 49 territories, hoisting its foreign cume to $226.8 million, clearly outpacing its domestic tally of $182 million. The Las Vegas caper retained pole position in the United Kingdom (where it's led for the past four weeks) for an outstanding total of $26.3 million and for a second weekend in South Korea ($4 million to date).

Showing signs of a war saturated market We Were Soldiers landed just $1.1 million from 384 screens on its opening weekend in the United Kingdom. Black Hawk Down was released only a month ago with Behind Enemy Lines opening a month before that. I hope Hart's War gets the news and backs its April 26th release date.

After getting mediocre grosses in Europe Black Hawk Down found some friends in Latin America and Asia. In Brazil the film commanded the second spot with $490,000 on 280 (outgunning The Rock and Enemy of the State. It was number one in Thailand with $302,000 on 77 (very impressive). Its foreign gross exceeded to a decent $34 million.

In Germany Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatre led the field whistling up $2.5 million on 709 screens.

Denzel Washington once again showed his poor international box office with a sickly $559,000 on 207 in France, its first foreign tryout.

2001 DOMESTIC RELEASED FILMS

These are my predicted foreign totals for the selected films:

A Beautiful Mind: $167 million

Monsters, Inc.: $204 million

Black Hawk Down: $141 million

Spy Game: $112 million

Ocean's Eleven: $205 million

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: $578 million

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone: $624 million (I'm going out on a limb!)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: $105 million

The Princess Diaries: $71 million

Shrek: $259 million

American Pie 2: $161 million

The Others: $126 million

*Numbers are changed whenever a market produces unexpected numbers.