'Iron Man 3' One-Ups U.S. Debut With Huge 2nd Week at Overseas Box Office
It's
not easy to upstage a $175.3 million, second-best-ever debut at the
U.S. box office, but that's what "Iron Man 3" did this weekend.
'Iron Man 3' One-Ups U.S. Debut With Huge 2nd Week at Overseas Box Office
By Todd Cunningham | The Wrap – 3 hours agoRelated Content
View Photo'Iron Man 3' One-Ups U.S. Debut With Huge 2nd Week at Overseas Box Office
View Photo'Iron Man 3' One-Ups U.S. Debut With Huge 2nd Week at Overseas Box Office
It's not easy to upstage a $175.3 million,
second-best-ever debut at the U.S. box office, but that's what "Iron Man
3" did this weekend.
Disney and Marvel's superhero
sequel actually topped that figure, behind only the $207 million debut
of "The Avengers" last year, by taking in $175.9 million from overseas
this weekend – in its second week. That's after bringing in a staggering
$195 million in its debut abroad the previous week. In 11 days of
release, "Iron Man" has taken in $680 million worldwide, with more than
$500 million of that coming from overseas.
Also read: 'Iron Man 3' Zooms to 2nd-Best U.S. Debut Ever"It's extraordinary," Disney's head of distribution Dave Hollis told TheWrap. "It's a Marvel superhero movie of course, but the action and comedy elements are clearly translating and have turned this into an event overseas."
The first two "Iron Man" movies took in $1.2 billion worldwide, however as much of those grosses came from the U.S. as abroad, and that won't be the case with "Iron Man 3." It is playing like a sequel to "The Avengers," which also featured Robert Downey Jr. and his Iron Man character.
This time around, foreign grosses could double the domestic haul. In China, where the film broke opening-day records last week, "Iron Man 3" has already brought in $63.5 million. Korea is next with $42 million, followed by the U.K. with $38 million.
"Some of it is the market," Hollis
said, referring to the explosive growth in the number of theaters and
emergence of several major markets, especially China and Russia, "but a
lot of it the concept, plan and execution by Marvel President Kevin
Feige and his team. "And we're talking years here."
BoxOffice.com Editor-in-Chief Phil Contrino agreed.
"They built up to 'The Avengers' and now they're building on 'The
Avengers'," he told TheWrap. "It's unprecedented and it's impressive."Also read: Huge 'Iron Man 3' Overseas Debut Validates 'Super Sequel' Strategy
The original "Iron Man" got the
ball rolling, with $585 million in global grosses back in 2008. Then
came "The Incredible Hulk" ($263 million), "Iron Man 2" ($624 million),
"Thor" ($449 million) and "Captain America: The First Avengers" ($368
million). They all set up "The Avengers" to make $1.5 billion and become
the third-highest grossing movie of all time, behind "Avatar" and
"Titanic." The Marvel superhero mash-up brought in $888 million
internationally, compared to $623 million domestically.
Much of the growth of the
international market has been built on 3D and Imax screens, and the
benefit of that was clear for "Iron Man 3," which played in sold-out
theaters around the globe.
It brought in approximately $13
million from 267 IMAX screens, an eye-popping per-screen average of
almost $50,000. In Russia, it was $72,000 per screen, in China, it was
$63,000.
"Basically, we ran out of
screens," Imax President Greg Foster told TheWrap. "That this film is
playing so strongly in its second week really speaks to how strong the
word of mouth is."
The huge China numbers are no
accident. Disney has had its eye on the Chinese market since it began
filming "Iron Man 3" last year.
The movie was partly financed by
the Chinese studio DMG, which is co-distributing in China. A version of
movie edited specifically for the Chinese market includes a number of
scenes filmed on location in the People's Republic and several added
scenes in Mandarin, as well as an appearance by one of that country's
most popular actresses, Fan Bingbing.
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