International Top One - Pirates Score Record Plunder in International Seas

May 30, 2007

The second worldwide release of the summer occurred over the weekend when Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End debuted in more than a hundred markets. Needless to say, records were broken. Over the weekend, the film managed $216.36 million on 17,600 screens in 102 markets and, adding in midweek numbers, the film has a total of $251.04 million. That represents the biggest opening, both including and excluding midweek numbers, as well as the widest release ever. Worldwide, the film has pulled in $404.08 million, including Monday, which may or may not be a record. Disney claims that is a record for highest six-day total, however, Sony shot back saying since the film opened in France and Italy on Tuesday, it is in fact a seven-day total and Spider-Man 3 earned just over $418 million in the same timeframe. Suffice it to say the record is in dispute and perhaps this will result in stricter accounting practices for worldwide releases in the future.

Looking at some individual market breakdowns, we see the film cracked $10 million in 7 markets led by the U.K.

  1. U.K.: $26.86 million on 552 screens with an additional $7.6 million on Holiday Monday
  2. South Korea: $19.4 million on 912 screens
  3. Germany: $18.76 million on 974 screens
  4. France: $17.84 million on 738 screens
  5. Russia: $13.96 million on 700 screens
  6. Japan: $12.09 million on 881 screens over the weekend and $15.94 million in total
  7. Spain: $11.92 million on 827 screens over the weekend and $12.87 million in total
These include new records in South Korea, Russia, and Spain. In South Korea, the film also set a record for widest release, playing on nearly half of the movie screens nationwide. The film also broke records in some midlevel markets, like the Netherlands where it earned $3.00 million over the weekend and $3.55 million in total, as well as smaller markets like Israel where it took in $830,000.

Other strong openings include:

  • Australia: $9.07 million on 606 screens
  • Mexico: $8.75 million on 1288 screens over the weekend and $10.16 million in total
  • Italy: $7.55 million on 909 screens over the weekend and $9.49 million in total
  • Brazil: $4.65 million on 789 screens
  • Belgium: $2.84 million on 160 screens
  • Denmark: $2.25 million on 122 screens over the weekend and $3.35 million in total
  • Argentina: $1.83 million on 258 screens
  • New Zealand: $1.45 million on 122 screens
  • Finland: $1.03 million on 80 screens over the weekend and $1.44 million in total
While impressive, it does seem that the film was not as strong as Spider-Man 3's opening was a few weeks ago in many markets and overall it is a dead heat. This is quite a change since Dead Man's Chest outpaced Spider-man 2 by more than 50% on the international scene.

There was precious little else to report this week as Spider-Man 3 was the only other film to top $10 million at the box office while just 10 other films were able to reach $1 million. Spider-Man 3 was able to crack $500 million internationally and $800 million worldwide, but we'll have more details on that at the weekend.


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Filed under: International Box Office, Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End