And what a bang that was, in just a couple of markets, ahead of its US release, the 4th entry in the Ice Age series opened with some very impressive numbers. Also ahead of its US release was The Amazing Spider-Man, just as amazing as its title suggests scoring over $50 million in only 13 territories.
The Ice Age franchise has never been a critical darling yet that never stopped this films from making more and more money with each new release. The original Ice Age opened 10 years ago and managed to gross $383.3 million. About 4 years later Blue Sky and Fox released Ice Age: The Meltdown to even greater success, $655.4 million worldwide. Another 3 years passed and we got Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with $886.7 million worldwide. At this rate Ice Age: Continental Drift should be looking at over $1.1 billion, absolutely crazy stuff. For now the film opened with $80.3 million in 35 territories, more than enough for the #1 spot.
In 2nd came The Amazing Spider-Man with an even more impressive $51.1 million opening. Why is that more impressive? Well, as the intro suggests, Spider-Man made all that money in 13 markets, mostly from Asia. For the record, Spider-Man 3 banked $890.8 million worldwide in 2007, so I expect this new film to end up around there or higher, mostly thanks to the higher cost of 3D tickets.
Chinese film Painted Skin: The Resurrection made a whopping $47.7 million in 3rd place, which is just insane and proof again of how strong that market has become over the years.
4rd place saw Madagascar 3 bringing in $15.6 million for an international total of $244.2 million with a lot more markets left to open in the coming weeks. Worldwide the animated flick has $428.3 million. Between this and Ice Age, it’s like they are pretty much printing money at this point.
Snow White and the Huntsman rounds out the top 5 with another $14.3 million, down 39%. Worldwide the updated fairytale has made $336 million, just about doubling its $170 million budget.
