International Weekend: Zorro's Start Far From Legendary
November 2, 2005
The Legend of Zorro started its international run with a nearly worldwide day-and-date release, coinciding with its US domestic launch.
This allowed the film to take top spot easily on the international charts with $27 million.
However, it was playing on 6,140 screens in 50 markets, giving in a rather lame per screen average.
The film finished first in many markets, including France with $5.8 million on 690 screens, Spain with $2.8 million on 550 screens, Mexico with $1.4 million on 500, China with $1.38 million on 250, Brazil with $1 million on 319, and Russia with $1 million on 301.
But it also struggled in many of the major markets, finishing second in Germany with $1.65 million on 674 screens, third place in the U.K. with $2.8 million on 485 and, and fourth in Italy and South Korea with $1.25 million on 500 and $1.06 million on 160 screens respectively.
Even with the better legs most films have on the international scene and a few more markets left to open, The Legend of Zorro will struggle to reach $100 million internationally, which is well below the original.
The winning streak for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit may be over, but its $13.9 million international total put one week away from the $100 million milestone, with a current total of $91.8 million.
As it has been for the past couple of weeks, nearly half of the film's weekend haul and total international box office came from the UK.
This weekend the film finished first there with $6.5 million on 495 screens for a $45.5 million running total.
The film is also still performing very well in France, down just 4% to $2.2 million for the weekend and $9.2 million during its run, and Germany where it added another $1 million to its $6.2 million total there.
There was not much in the way of new openings this weekend, but the film did manage a fourth place debut in Turkey with $220,000 on 95 screens.
The Corpse Bride made a couple of debuts in two major markets, but it's hard to describe the results as anything better than mixed.
In Spain the film finished a distant second with $1.31 million, but that was on just 155 screens, giving the film the best per screen average in the top ten, possibly the market.
It had a similar result in Italy, where the film finished in third place with $1.26 million on just 213 screens and again had the best per screen average in the top ten.
Strong legs could be in store for both markets, especially since the film is holding up so well in France, down just 19% to $2.3 million, and in the UK, where it dropped just 20% to $1.6 million.
Overall, the film earned $10.5 million on 2,400 screens in 26 markets for a early international box office of $27.4 million
Flightplan added $6.3 million on 1,867 screens in 21 markets to its international box office, which hit $31 million over the weekend.
Most of that came from holdovers, but the film did finish first in Belgium with $580,000 on 70 screens.
The film's largest market was still Germany, where it remained in first place with $2.78 million on 261 screens for a 10-day total of $7.5 million there.
Amazingly, Nanny McPhee saw its box office grow by 18% during its second weekend in the UK, but it was still stuck in second place.
This time around it earned $5.47 million on 425 screens for a $17.46 million running tally.
However, its ability to draw an audience domestically or in non-English markets is still uncertain.
Filed under: International Box Office, Flightplan, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Corpse Bride, Nanny McPhee, The Legend of Zorro