After expanding to 14 more territories, The Expendables 2 gathered enough money to maintain and even build on its lead over the rest of the top 10. In 2nd there’s Brave while The Dark Knight Rises slipped to 3rd.
Sylvester Stallone and his gang of semi-retired action stars seem to fare better internationally than in North America. The Expendables 2 was actually up a nice 13% from last week for a $25.9 million weekend. That brings the flick to an international total of $66.7 million thus far, running ahead of its predecessor in a few countries.
Now The Expendables made $171.4 million internationally so the sequel still has a few more stairs to climb until it gets there, but I can tell you the film is definitely on the right track. Worldwide The Expendables 2 is at $121.9 million right now and based on how fast it got here (little over 2 weeks), it’s safe to say a total north of $250 million should be within reach. Actually it really has to be since The Expendables grossed $274.4 million while on a tighter budget ($80 million versus $100 million for the new one). I can’t see The Expendables 3 being made unless this sequel makes more than the original worldwide.
Brave keeps going up and down, this time with $16.4 million which means 213.3 million internationally. So I did some digging around the Pixar yard and guess what, excluding Toy Story (1995), each and every big screen animation sporting their brand made at least $200 million internationally, so absolutely no surprise that Brave did it too. But how does the film stack worldwide you ask? Well $443.5 million is the magic number, soon to pass the $462 million of Cars for 10th place on the all-time Pixar worldwide chart.
The Dark Knight Rises took $16 million for a mighty impressive $535.2 million internationally. Worldwide the Nolan epic is ever so close to the $1 billion mark, currently sitting at $959.1 million, 15th highest of all time and very soon to be 13th. With big markets like Italy and China opening the film this week, The Dark Knight Rises should have no problem blowing past the $1 billion grossed by The Dark Knight in 2008.
Total Recall was 4th, still trying to save face after a horrible performance in North America. The sci-fi remake made $14.3 million for $80.3 million internationally and $135.9 million worldwide. Now keep in mind, the Arnold Schwarzenegger original collected $261.3 million back in 1990, twice that if we adjust for inflation.
We have another animation rounding out the top 5, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted with $13.8 million and $371.3 million internationally. Worldwide the flick has $585.1 million, almost as much as Madagascar 2 ($603.9 million).
Pretty sad that we have only one original property (Brave) in the top 5 and a total of 3 in the entire top 10.
