Interstellar’ Blasts Past $200M With $42M China Lift-Off: International Box Office, After rocketing to $82.9M in its debut last weekend, Interstellar blasted off in China on Wednesday, boosting this frame to $106M. Overseas, the cume is now $224.1M and the global haul is $321.9M.
Christopher Nolan’s odyssey from the corn belt to Orion’s Belt had by far the best performance this session as most major titles have stayed out of Interstellar’s flight path, and as others are tapering off after long runs. Based on the Top 10 studio titles, this week was off from last week by less than 1% when factoring in Oriental DreamWorks’ release of Penguins Of Madagascar in China. The weekend was roughly on par with last year’s similar session. At the time, Thor: The Dark World was still hammering away at the box office and Gravity was exerting non-stop pull.
Next weekend, Interstellar goes to Japan where it will not face off with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I which is opening pretty much everywhere else in the world. The previous Hunger Games installment, last year’s Catching Fire, did slightly better overseas than domestically at about $440M vs $425M. The best markets for the film were the UK and Germany. As they did with Interstellar, the rest of the majors have stepped off of next weekend to allow The Hunger Games to begin for the penultimate time.
See below the original post for some key market highlights including what to look out for in China next week as a Legend rises, and an update on Shah Rukh Khan‘s Happy New Year.
PREVIOUS, 11:44 AM PT: With a drop of just 22% from its opening frame, Interstellar’s 2nd weekend grossed an estimated $106M on more than 15.4M admissions from 21,290 screens in 63 markets.
The international cume to date is $224.1M, which is 13% over director Christopher Nolan’s 2010 hit, Inception, and 6% ahead of last year’s similarly space-minded Gravity in the same markets at the same point of release. IMAX results are an estimated $12.4M – down just 10% from the opening session. The overseas cume in the format is now $24.1M. Interstellar’s worldwide cume is now $321.9M.
After blasting off with a Wednesday open of $5.4M in China – giving Nolan his biggest bow ever in the market – Interstellar came out of the five-day with an estimated $42M (256.9M Rmb) from 7,740 screens. With a 55% share of the market, this is now Nolan’s highest-grossing opening weekend in the Middle Kingdom, Warner Bros’ all-time biggest 2D open and the studio’s second-biggest opening weekend of all time behind Pacific Rim 3D.
The sci-fi epic bested the three-day opening of Oriental DreamWorks’ Penguins Of Madagascar, which debuted in China two weeks ahead of its domestic bow and the beginning of its international rollout. The movies grabbed two of the last slots available to Hollywood films in China this year, but Interstellar had two extra days after releasing on Wednesday and Penguins entered the market cold, without the benefit of a big U.S. opening to build buzz.
Directed Penguins took $11.3M from 3,500 China locations after bowing on Friday. That was good for a No. 2 slot. Interstellar and Penguins will now run for another three weeks and will have to face off with local competition as that grows into the end of the year. There’s also The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part I to contend with next Friday, although the franchise has not been as strong in China as elsewhere.
