News

Alongside Tenet, Delete History, Greenland and Charlatan had strong weekends.

French local titles survive onslaught of Tenet

With Tenet arriving last week in 678 French cinemas, the Warner Bros release made a noisy splash in the marketplace, achieving 810,000 admissions for the five-day opening period (August 26-30), including previews from August 24-25. That’s by far the biggest opening total for a film since Covid struck, and is the biggest for a single title in a single frame since Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker delivered 850,000 admissions over the January 1-5 reporting period (in its third week of release).

Despite the success,...

‘Tenet’ played previews at the weekend in Australia and South Korea, and on Monday in France.

While Tenet does not officially release until this Wednesday (August 26), the highly anticipated Warner Bros release played previews at the weekend in Australia and South Korea, and on Monday (August 24) in France.

Warner Bros put a block on the reporting of figures, but local Australian trade paper Inside Film reported that feedback from exhibitors was “highly positive”. The previews generated 60% of weekend takings at Hoyts Cinemas, for example.

Overall, Australian box office for the top 20 titles was reported to be 38% down on the previous session,...

China was the big breakout this past weekend, leading the international box office for the fourth frame in a row and powered by the reissue of Warner Bros’ Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone in a 4K 3D restoration that conjured $13.6M on 16,000 screens over the three-day frame. With Monday and Tuesday’s Middle Kingdom grosses, the film (also known as Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone) crossed $1B worldwide.

Look for China to dominate again this coming weekend with war pic The Eight Hundred. Already, the controversial film from director Guan Hu had strong previews on Friday ($2.1M) and positively rocked turnstiles with further sneaks on Monday and Tuesday. The 1937-set story of Chinese soldiers defending a warehouse against the invading Japanese army during the Battle of Shanghai set new single-day records in the reopening process on Monday and Tuesday, each near $7.6M and cumed $16.8M through last night.

Gerard Butler tops nine new markets with STX’s action thriller ‘Greenland’.

Gerard Butler’s latest action thriller Greenland opened top in nine of its 11 new markets at the weekend: Taiwan, Singapore, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Top new territory for Greenland at the weekend was Taiwan, opening with a five-day $1.01m from 62 locations, and a 57% market share, for local distributor CatchPlay. STX – which produced and represents the film internationally – reports that this result is 77% ahead of the debut number for Butler’s Angel Has Fallen, and 174% ahead of Olympus Has Fallen.

The estimated international weekend total...

Sunday Update: Blessedly, another busy weekend at the international box office as new titles and eventized reissues hit overseas markets that have resumed operations. The biggest numbers are from China, where Warner Bros’ 4K 3D restoration of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone drew muggles to the tune of an estimated $13.6M on 16,000 screens over the three-day frame (including $2.1M from 594 IMAX screens). The 19-year-old movie set a new single-day gross record in the post-covid era on Saturday and is now just a little over $2M from becoming only the second movie in the franchise to hit $1B worldwide.

China’s overall three-day weekend was a 65% increase on the last session with about $26.7M. It also helped that capacity restrictions were eased to 50% and that Friday included strong previews of controversial local war pic The Eight Hundred which continues sneaks during the next week before officially launching on August 21.

Sony...

‘Unhinged’ topped the box office in six countries, including new markets Russia and Austria.

South Korean box office rose 68% at the weekend, thanks to the arrival of strong local title Deliver Us From Evil, directed by Hong Won-Chan (2015’s Office).

Cj Entertainment’s action thriller grossed a handy $10.6m for the August 7-9 period, and $15m since its August 5 opening date. Admissions were 1.39m for the weekend period, and just over 2.03m since Wednesday – 78% of the total market. The film reunites Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae who appeared together in 2013’s New World.

Deliver Us From Evil’s numbers are...