World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Godzilla Minus Zero’s record opening, Ramayana’s ₹500 crore Diwali weekend, a strong start for Wild Horse Nine & I Play Rocky, and a Bond announcement due.
Morning, all. Monday means the weekend box office, and a Japanese monster has broken a North American record.
The weekend box office, worldwide: Godzilla Minus Zero topped the worldwide chart with an estimated $63 million, made up of a record-setting $31.6 million from 3,254 cinemas in North America, plus about $17 million in Japan over the weekend, and the rest from other markets. It’s the biggest-ever North American opening for a live-action foreign-language film, beating the $17.8 million of China’s Hero in 2002, and IMAX generated $21.3 million globally, or 34% of the takings. India’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, as it’s known abroad, was second worldwide with about $52 million, according to Screen’s figures, although Deadline has it at $55 million. Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine opened to $6 million in North America from 1,100 cinemas, in eighth place, and $6.6 million from 29 other markets, a $12.6 million worldwide start. Warner Bros.’ The Cat in the Hat was second in North America with $20.5 million, plus another $10 million internationally, which is a disappointment against a $92 million budget, although audiences gave it an ‘A’ CinemaScore. Elsewhere, Amazon MGM’s I Play Rocky opened in just seven cinemas in North America, taking $345,000 for a strong $49,200 per-cinema average, and You Can See Everything fell just 23% in its fourth weekend to $8.8 million, taking it to $79.8 million in North America. These are Sunday studio estimates, with the confirmed numbers due later today.
UK and Ireland: The official UK-Ireland chart for the weekend isn’t published yet, so I can’t tell you how Wild Horse Nine and Godzilla Minus Zero, which opened in 655 and 475 cinemas respectively, or I Play Rocky, which opened in 145, fared. I’ll fold it in as soon as it lands. What I can tell you is that Wicker held up well in its second weekend, with an estimated $1.5 million, down 33%, from 719 cinemas, taking it to $5.7 million.
Ramayana’s Diwali weekend: Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1 passed a worldwide gross of ₹499.20 crore (about $52 million) after four days, according to Sacnilk, and it’s now just short of ₹500 crore. After a 26% drop on Friday, it bounced back 45% on Saturday, with ₹69.80 crore net in India (about $7.3 million), followed by ₹56.15 crore (about $5.8 million) on Diwali Sunday. That took its India net total to ₹238.85 crore (about $25 million), but narrowly missed the all-time top ten opening weekends in India. It opens in Hong Kong on Thursday, and I’ll bring you the full numbers once the figures settle.
A Bond announcement before the end of the month? As I mentioned yesterday, Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult joined Jack Lowden, Josh O’Connor and Callum Turner in the screen tests. Industry journalist Justin Kroll now says Amazon MGM will announce its choice before US Thanksgiving, which is on 26 November, and suggests that O’Connor was the last-minute addition, while Pattinson and Hoult had always been in consideration. Amazon MGM has declined to comment, and none of it is confirmed. Which just goes to show that NOBODY really knows and it might equally well be somebody from left-field making all us pundits look bad!
The American Film Market opens tomorrow: The American Film Market (AFM), the trade event where producers and sales agents sell films to distributors around the world, runs in Los Angeles from 10 to 15 November, which is why so many of the casting announcements I’ve mentioned recently have been labelled as being “for the AFM”.
Birthdays: Bille August, the Danish director who won the Palme d’Or for Pelle the Conqueror and The Best Intentions, turns 78 today, and Lou Ferrigno of The Incredible Hulk turns 75.
That’s all for today.
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