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‘Tenet’ Takes $285M Global Through Sunday With 86% From Overseas; China’s ‘Leap’ Jumps On $25M Weekend Bow – International Box Office

Nancy Tartaglione
·6 min read

TUESDAY UPDATE, with actuals: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet again came in slightly higher in Warner Bros’ weekend actuals versus Sunday’s estimates with $16.2M on 19,764 screens in 56 overseas markets. That’s a -35% hold (-25% excluding China). The international box office through Sunday is $243.7M for $284.9M worldwide. As key areas of the U.S. remain closed, offshore is powering Tenet at 86% of the global gross.

The Japan hold at No. 1 is a confirmed -30% to track 41% ahead of Dunkirk which finaled at $14.8M at 2017 rates. Elsewhere, holds were better than estimated in Germany (+15%), Holland (+9%), France (-8%) and UK (-19%).

The Top 5 through Sunday are China ($64.3M), UK ($19.7M), France ($18.6M), Germany ($14.7M) and Korea ($13.1M). Maoyan is projecting an RMB 444.6M ($65.2M) finish in China which will be flooded with local pics from this week for the National Day holiday. Already, China‘s Leap scored a $25M opening this weekend and has climbed to $32M through 5PM local time on Tuesday. Tomorrow and Thursday add further homegrown titles.

Other offshore markets are likely to have a quiet October (although Liam Neeson will be back in action/crime mode with Honest Thief in some areas and Tenet still has 25 markets to release). There are no new major studio titles in the majors until Universal begins international rollout on No Time To Die starting November 11 — if the Bond movie sticks to its date.

In other updates from the weekend, STX’s Greenland did a confirmed $3.7M in 19 markets with a better than estimated $791K at No. 1 in Spain and three weeks of runway until Honest Thief. The offshore cume is $17.6M. Korea opens today.

Disney’s Mulan came in at $3.4M for a $64.4M offshore cume and The New Mutants ended the weekend at $1.5M for a $19.6M total to date internationally.

In local-language news outside China, Central Partnership’s sports biodrama Sagittarius (Streltsov) bowed at No. 1 in Russia with $1.25M. The film tracks the life and career of Eduard Streltsov, aka the Russian Pélé.

See below for more detail from the weekend.

PREVIOUS, SUNDAY UPDATE, writethru: In its fifth weekend at the international box office, Warner Bros’ Tenet added another $15.8M from 56 markets, a 38% drop from last session. The offshore cume has risen to $242M for a worldwide total of $283.2M. Christopher Nolan’s time-bending thriller, which has been powered by overseas markets, had a strong hold (-30%) in Japan where it debuted at No. 1 last weekend. Benefitting from the Silver Week holiday, the midweeks helped set Tenet tracking 46% ahead of Dunkirk in the market.

Tenet again leads studio titles overseas, and has grossed $64.3M in China through Sunday, though that market was led this session by Leap which did an estimated $24.7M in three days as the country gets ready for the National Day holiday. This is slightly ahead of Mulan’s Middle Kingdom debut a few weeks ago and below Tenet’s September 4th opening frame launch of $30M. Leap, about the Chinese women’s national volleyball team, is carrying a 7.3 on reviews site Douban and a 9.2 from ticketing platform Maoyan. In IMAX, Leap scored $1.2M from 663 screens. Capacity restrictions were eased to 75% this weekend.

The Peter Chan-directed Leap is leading pre-sales through the middle of next week, with local titles Vanguard, Legend Of Deification and My People, My Homeland coming on strong towards the latter part of the week. The next session in China is expected to bring a lot of spin to local turnstiles. The Eight Hundred, which last week became 2020’s top grossing movie worldwide, has crossed RMB 3B to hit an estimated local cume of $441M.

Turning back to Tenet, there were very strong holds in several markets including France (-13%), Germany (+9%), Holland (+8%), Italy (-17%), UK (-21%), Korea (-28%) and Australia (-21%). The Top 5 offshore hubs are China ($64.3M), UK ($19.6M), France ($18M), Germany ($14.6M) and Korea ($13.1M). There are still 25 overseas markets yet to open

IMAX grossed an additional $1.8M from 625 offshore Tenet screens, representing 11% of the weekend box office and pushing the IMAX international cume to $27M (11.2% of the total). After a record-setting IMAX opening in Japan last frame, the format’s cume there is $2.8M from just 10 days of release.

STX’s Greenland continues its successful run with an estimated additional $3.7M from 19 new markets as well as holdovers. Chief among the debuts on the Gerard Butler-starrer this session was a No. 1 in Spain with $777K from 517 locations — and despite new restrictions in the capital. The international cume is $17.7M through Sunday.

In the Middle East region, Greenland opened to an estimated $1.5M across 283 locations, performing at 50% of both Mulan and Tenet’s opening weekend. Hong Kong opened at No. 2 with an estimated $383K from 55 sites and Thailand saw a No. 1 debut, with $263K from 69. Next weekend adds Korea and New Zealand.

Voltage’s After We Collided steamed up another $3.25M in 32 overseas markets this frame to boost the international cume to $34.5M. More detail is to come on the Anna Todd sequel adaptation.

After holding 2nd place in China throughout its third low-grossing frame last weekend, Disney’s live-action Mulan slipped down to 4th position this session, bringing the market cume to $40M. This is about where Maoyan sees the run finaling, which seems likely given the influx of big National Day titles this week. In total overseas, Mulan added $3.3M from 20 markets and has an international cume of $64.4M. China leads play, followed by the Middle East at $5.8M, Russia ($4.4M), Thailand ($2.8M) and Taiwan ($2.4M). The film is still No. 1 in Malaysia and had a good hold in Poland (-19%), but overall the mega-production’s offshore theatrical business is disappointing. The Israel release planned for this session was delayed due to the country going into a new lockdown phase.

The New Mutants, from 20th/Disney, added $1.4M from 41 markets for an offshore cume of $19.4M. This is neck-and-neck with domestic for a $38.9M global gross. Germany (-12%), UK (-19%), France (-26%) and Mexico (-30%) had decent holds. France, where cinemas are still open despite new restrictions on bars and restaurants in Paris, Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, leads TNM with $2.8M, followed by Mexico ($2M), UK ($1.9M), Spain ($1.3M) and Germany ($1.1M). The spinoff will go to Brazil on October 22 while China is still to be determined.

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