Continental Drift swaps places with The Amazing Spider-Man again in what seems like a never-ending battle of box office dominance. Good thing Batman is right around the corner, just in time to bring a bit more diversity.
Ice Age: Continental Drift grossed another $97.5 million last week, up 17%, mostly thanks to some new markets. So far the popular animation has made $360.6 million internationally and $419.3 million worldwide. The way it’s going, Ice Age 4 should be headed for at least $800 million worldwide, and it may even match the series best of $886.7 million gathered by Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009. It sure didn’t look that way some weeks ago, but I’m not afraid to say that maybe I was wrong this time.
The Amazing Spider-Man keeps on being his amazing self, now in 2nd place with $67.3 million, down 47%, a bit steep if you ask me. Web-head is at $321.2 million internationally from just about every territory out there and something like $531.4 million worldwide. Mister amazing here will probably bring in $750-800 million worldwide at the end of its run, nothing outstanding but a great start for this new series nonetheless. Something future installments can build on as long as Sony doesn’t drop the ball again.
Painted Skin: The Resurrection, a Chinese film that has been making the rounds at the international box office for the past weeks, made another $16.8 million for a new total of $101.9 million, mostly from China, outstanding.
In 4th place we have another Chinese film? It’s called The Four and opened with $13 million from 2 territories. Rounding up the top 5 is Cocktail, a Bollywood romantic comedy that generated $11.1 million.
Today The Dark Knight Rises opened in Australia and in parts of Asia with Europe to follow tomorrow. For the weekend it should have at least 16 markets (excluding North America). To give you a bit of perspective, The Dark Knight opened with around $51 million from those same territories. With the growth of international box office over the years and the bump in popularity Batman got since then, $70-80 million would not be out of the question for the caped crusader. So be on the lookout, we might get a new leader next week.
