‘Oppenheimer’ Rises To $718M Global, ‘Barbie’ Basks In $1.28B, ‘Meg 2’ Chomps Past $300M; ‘Blue Beetle’ Scurries To $18M Overseas Start – International Box Office

Refresh for latest…: It’s been another very busy weekend at the international box office with milestones and great holds, as well as a new entry and local-language movies adding to the mix. 

Coming off of a record-breaking debut in Korea, Christopher Nolan and Universal’s Oppenheimer led the overseas frame for the studios with a $32M session in 80 markets, pushing the global cume well past $700M, as we noted would be the case yesterday.

Warner Bros, meanwhile, has a lot going on. Barbie added $26.7M in 75 markets to lift worldwide to a high-heeled $1.279B. The studio’s China coproduction Meg 2: The Trench has now crossed $300M global, and its new offering, DC’s Blue Beetle landed within the expected range, bowing to $18M from 63 overseas markets.

At the same time, there is action aplenty for local titles in China and India (see more below).

Starting with the new studio entry this weekend, Warner Bros/DC’s Blue Beetle scurried to an $18M opening in 63 markets, landing within the range we were hearing ahead of the weekend. In those starts, the Xolo Maridueña-starrer was No. 1 in 17. Combined with domestic, the global debut is $43.4M.

Regionally, Blue Beetle, from director Ángel Manuel Soto, was tops in Latin America, surpassing the debuts of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves by 27% and DC comp The Suicide Squad by 26%. The film was also the No. 1 title in many Asia markets, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. Western Europe was mixed, although France and Italy overperformed. 

Breaking it down, Mexico was the top play at $2.7M, a No. 1 launch over the above comps and 478% ahead of the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (the market may have been impacted by Hurricane Hilary). Brazil grossed $2.1M at open, No. 1 on par with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and 42% over The Suicide Squad. France and the UK both took $1.5M – the former on par with The Suicide Squad and well ahead of TMNTMM, and the latter in line with Into the Spider-Verse on a weekend impacted by good weather and the women’s World Cup final. Rounding out the Top 5 openers, Indonesia bowed to $1.2M, dominating at 55% share of the market, above Into the Spider-Verse by 50%, The Suicide Squad by 964% and TMNTMM by over 2K%.

There are still 12 markets to come, including the Middle East this week and Australia in September.

Looking at the holdovers, Oppenheimer, as we reported yesterday, crossed $700M globally on Saturday, now with an estimated $717.8M through today. Just five weeks into release, it’s the 4^th highest grossing Nolan film ever worldwide, having overtaken Interstellar. Oppenheimer is also the 4^th biggest film of 2023 globally behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Barbie and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3

The current international frame is eyed at $32M in 80 markets for a $432.6M offshore cume to date. This is Nolan’s top film of all time at the international box office when restated to today’s dollars and excluding un-released markets.

The Cillian Murphy-led epic is the biggest Nolan film ever in 51 markets.

Korea had a fantastic debut, breaking records on Tuesday as the biggest Nolan launch day and the biggest Hollywood opening day of the year. The 6-day opening weekend of $12.6 million is the second biggest opening weekend for a Nolan film (only behind The Dark Knight Rises), the biggest Hollywood drama opening of all time and the 3rd biggest Hollywood start of the year. The standard 4-day weekend is well above Inception, almost double The Dark Knight and more than double Tenet – and in a competitive environment, to boot. It has already surpassed the lifetime of No Time To Die.

Also notable, the UK is now at $63.9M, performing in line The Dark Knight Rises and Dunkirk. The $13M IMAX portion of that has exceeded Avatar: The Way of Water to become the No. 2 IMAX title ever behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Germany has cumed $39.5M, France is at $31.2M, Australia has grossed $22.9M and Netherlands had a great hold at No. 1 (down just 28%) with a $16.1M cume through Sunday.

The IMAX global cume is$146.4M, now the 5^th highest grossing IMAX title ever. For perspective, the Top 4 IMAX movies each earned over $2B in lifetime worldwide box office (Avatar, Avatar: The Way Of Water, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Endgame) whereas Oppenheimer is currently at the aforementioned $718M.

Internationally, the IMAX cume is $65.6M, good for Nolan’s best result ever in the format and theNo. 7 biggest ever (No. 3 in like-for-like markets behind Avatar 1&2).

Italy and Greece open Oppenheimer this week, with China set for August 30.

The living doll that is Barbie is also continuing to show great strength. The 5th frame added $26.7M from 75 markets for a 42% drop. The overseas cume is now $711.9M with $1.279B global.

Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie have delivered the 2nd biggest movie ever for WB globally and the 5th best internationally. This is the studio’s highest-grosser in 30 markets including the UK, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Poland.

Barbie’s Top 5 overseas markets through Sunday are the UK ($109.6M), Mexico ($53.2M), Australia ($51.1M), Germany ($47.4M) and Brazil ($43M).

Also from WB, Meg 2: The Trench had a meaty $21.9M third frame in 76 markets. The international running total now stands at $250.1M and the global cume to date is currently $316.6M. China is leading all play with $106.3M to date, followed by Mexico ($18.3M), the UK ($12.5M), France ($9.9M) and Spain ($9.8M). Japan is still to release on August 25. 

Sony’s Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story took a sophomore lap of $6.3M, down a slight 37% in the small first wave of 34 offshore markets as it looks to build word of mouth ahead of wider rollout. The overseas total is $22.7M to date.  Notable holds include the UAE(+36%), Kuwait (-12%), Qatar (-16%), Saudi Arabia (-29%) and France (-29%). Still to release are Brazil and Mexico next week, and China, Japan, Italy and Korea in September. 

Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ran up another $6.2M in 67 markets with a 45% drop. The offshore cume on the Tom Cruise-starrer is now $376.4M with $541M globally. Japan continues to race along at No. 1, now with a $31.5M cume, just under the UK which is at $32.3M to date. 

Disney/Pixar’s Elemental fired up another $5.9M in 51 markets, lifting the overseas cume to $307.2M and global to $458.3M. The international weekend hold was $37%. Korea leads all play at a total $52.4M, followed by the UK ($20.8M), Mexico ($20.7M), France ($20.7M) and China ($15.9M). 

In local titles, after a stellar start last frame, India’s Gadar 2 added an estimated $13.3M (the 2nd best 2nd weekend ever for a Bollywood title), for a $54M cume (448 crore) to date. It’s currently the No. 4 Bollywood movie ever in India, behind Pathaan, Dangal and PK. Also in its sophomore session, Jailer added an estimated $7.25M for a local cume of $40M.

China’s No More Bets anted up another estimated $65M, leading to a local running total of $376M. Maoyan currently has the Super Lion title reaching a final of $520M+. Getting there would make it the No. 3 movie of the year in the market. The IMAX cume is $9.7M. With this weekend, 2023 officially becomes IMAX’s biggest local-language year ever at $184M and with over four months still to go.

MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (PAR): $4.8M intl weekend (47 markets); $30.3M intl cume/$118.4M global 
*Strays (UNI): $2M intl weekend (21 markets); $2M intl cume/$10.3M global
Haunted Mansion (DIS): $1.4M intl weekend (45 markets); $26.4M intl cume/$85.2M global
*Denotes new