The Dark Knight Rises is now the 13th film to ever make it to $1 billion worldwide. Actually the film is already the #1 highest grossing Batman movie of all time and the 2nd most successful superhero at the box office. Meanwhile, The Avengers passed $1.5 billion last weekend too.
Thanks to a fantastic debut in China, The Dark Knight Rises reclaimed the top spot at the international box office with $49.8 million which brings the caped crusader to $577.7 million outside North America, a new high for the series. So far Batman seems to be doing pretty well making up for the lost ground domestically compared to its predecessor and based on these latest debuts (Italy was also very good to Batman), I think it’s safe to say The Dark Knight Rises should ultimately end up with about $1.1 billion worldwide or 7th place on the all-time chart.
Here be a surprise, The Amazing Spider-Man came in 2nd thanks to, well, China again. Oh yes people, they actually released The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man on the same week over there. What was the result you ask? Well both superheroes had outstanding debuts and Spider-Man actually managed to slightly surpass Batman. The Amazing Spider-Man grossed an amazing $32.9 million, bringing the film to an international total of 475.3 million. For Spidey that’s more than Spider-Man 1 and 2 but less than 3. Worldwide the wall-crawler sits at $735.2 million, a series low but not by that much. In the end it should come close or even pass Spider-Man 2‘s $783.8 million.
After another steady week, The Expendables 2 was 3rd with $25.9 million, basically same as the week before thanks in no small part to 9 new markets that opened the flick, now available in a total of 42 territories. Internationally The Expendables 2 has $104.2 million for a worldwide total of $173.8 million. That is still over $100 million shy of The Expendables so while numbers are looking very solid week over week, it won’t be easy collecting all that money.
Brave was down 10% to 4th place with $14.8 million. This slow-burner has $241.4 million internationally and $473.9 million worldwide. Soon it will become the 6th consecutive $500 million grosser for Pixar and the 9th film overall to reach that number.
Total Recall rounds out the top 5 thanks to $12.5 million, almost $100 million internationally so far and 155.7 million worldwide, all on a $125 million budget (some sources claim it was more like $135 to 150 million).
The soon to be released on Blu-Ray and DVD The Avengers finally made its way to $1.5 billion worldwide, a number only the most hardcore fans could have anticipated. The only reason people still find the incredible box office run of The Dark Knight Rises disappointing is because of The Avengers
