With the Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes documentary craze currently a stateside thing, Paramount/Legendary/Capcom’s Street Fighter was the ringleader at the worldwide weekend B.O. with a $51.1M global opening. Of that $20.1M came from 65 markets with the lionshare stateside with $31M.
Again, this is several kicks up from what Street Fighter did in its last big-screen appearance with Jean- Claude Van Damme in 1994, that pic opening to $6.8M domestic, and ending its run at $33.4M stateside, and $99.4M global (all unadjusted for inflation and currency swings).
Though Street Figther‘s opening round is lower than expected (a $70M worldwide opening was hoped for), I understand that this $82M net production will be fine in the end after all ancillaries per those in the know. For the Skydance owned Paramount, this is a distribution deal. Capcom and Legendary co-funded the movie.
Why the lower then anticipated opening? It was essentially the older fans who showed up and nobody else. Also, with a PG-13 rating, the hope is that an expanded family audience would come out for Street Fighter in a way that they couldn’t for the R-rated Mortal Kombat, based on another Gen X videogame.
The reported opening on Mortal Kombat II was $63M WW with $23M from 78 territories on 31K screens. In like-for-likes, Street Fighter‘s foreign start of $20.1M is 4% ahead of Mortal Kombat 2 and 2% ahead of Free Guy.
Street Fighter was shot for Imax, which did $7.7M in its global network; broken out that’s $5.4M in North America (18% of the weekend) and $2.3M from 471 screens offshore.
The No. 1 openings were in UK ($3.3M at 593 sites), Mexico ($1.8M at 865 sites), Australia ($1.6M at 260 locations), Panama ($228K) and Taiwan ($235K at 90 locations) and Indonesia with $384K at 480 theaters.
No. 2s were Brazil ($1.2M at 726 locations), Malaysia ($491K at 138 locations), Hong Kong ($201K at 55 sites), Thailand ($200K at 257 locations) as well as UAE with $705K at 58 locations. Overall, the total Middle East region grossed $1.4M.
The Kitao Sakurai directed movie was No. 3 in Germany ($850K at 436 theaters), Philippines with $275K at 206 theaters, and Colombia with $227K.
The raging riots against the police curbed moviegoing in France where Street Fighter was No. 4 with $1.1M at 355 locations. Spain was also 4th with $550K at 298 locations in addition to Netherlands with $314K at 86 locales.
In Japan, Street Fighter was the second MPA title in the market with $875K at 333 locations for a No. 5 rank. Also, the movie swung low in Italy with $451K at 250 locations. Korea didn’t have a front seat to the movie with a No. 8 $242K opening at 435 locations. Meanwhile in India, Street Fighter did $431K at 1,064 locations; that’s where the Nelson Dilipkumar directed action title Jailer 2 reigned with an estimated $18M (and global around $32M for a No. 2 rank). We’ll have more official figures on Jailer 2 from Rentrak later.
Austin Abrams is more popular in his Sony/Constantin movie Resident Evil than Disney/20th Century Studio’s Whalefall, a $22.6M WW fifth weekend (3rd place) to awful $17.5M global bow (6th place)
The second big screen take of a Capcom game in the market, Resident Evil, saw $17.1M (-36%) from overseas at 67 markets and 31K screens with $5.5M domestic. Running global cume is $361.1M ($212.7M of that from foreign). Top-performing markets by cume are China $56.0M, UK $18.2M, Mexico $12.4M, Australia $9.1M, Japan $8.5M, France $8.5M, Germany $8.2M, and Spain $7.7M. Constantin has Germany speaking territories with Metropolitan handling France and Sony the rest of the world.
It was one of the best thrillers of 2023 on the New York Times list, which is why 20th made it. Some rival distribution sources believe that Disney would have best positioned Whalefall as a genre film so that it could over perform, however, they couldn’t alienate the book’s fans. While Whalefall on its net $60M production cost tanked with a No. 4 opening, somewhere in the world it was No. 1 and that was in Bosnia, Kuwait and Sauda Arabia ($400K). UK was high at $700K. The pic was No. 2 in China ($700K), Korea (wow, beating Street Fighter with $400K), Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Bahrain, Croatia, Iraq, Jordan, Lithuania, Oman, Qatar and UAE ($400K). The Brian Duffield directed movie was No. 3 in Japan ($500K) as well as Philippines Lebanon, Serbia, Slovenia and Ecuador. Disney says Whalefall opened within the top 5 US films in Mexico ($800K, best territory for the movie), Germany ($500K), Italy ($400K), Spain, and Brazil. France did $500K.
Universal/Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s second weekend of Other Mommy was fourth with a $17.9M WW take ($9.5M int’l at 65 territories, $8.3M domestic, -70% on that D+ CinemaScore). Big running global cume at $78.7M ($33.9M foreign, $44.8M domestic) off that net $19M production price tag. That beats the reported cume of Jessica Chastain’s spooky movie Crimson Peak ($74.6M WW), but it still has a way to go if it’s going to overtake her Mama ($146.4M WW).
Other Mommy in France did $1.2M at 264 screens which included $118K previews. The standard opening was above Speak No Evil. Belgium bowed to $170K, No. 2 in the market behind The Odyssey, across 70 screens. An opening at this level is above The Black Phone and well above Black Phone 2. Holdovers included UK/Ireland with $1.2M in weekend 2 and a $5M cume, ahead of Black Phone. Italy delivered a second frame of $1M for a No. 2 behind a local title and a $3.7M cume, ahead of the lifetimes of Weapons and Evil Dead Rise. Mexico minted $900K with a $3.4M cume. Spain did $600K for a $2.3M running cume, ahead of Black Phone and Speak No Evil. Australia was $500K for $1.9M cume, in line with Black Phone 2.
Fifth around the globe was Amazon MGM Studio’s third weekend of Colleen Hoover’s Verity with $17.6M WW ($11.4M int’l and $6.2M domestic). Worldwide stands at $145.3M ($79.2M offshore, $66.2M North America). The movie clicked past Regretting You ($90.4M WW) as Hoover’s second best around the world a while ago, and it will remain that way as It Ends With Us is such high bar at $351.4M WW.
Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett are still No. 1 in Germany with $1.9M (-27%) at 685 screens and a near $10M cume. Slovakia opened to $140K from 80 screens for a No. 1 rank, by far the biggest opening for a Hoover book adaptation there. Brazil still great with a No. 2 of $1.2M at 1,000 screens, -40% for a $9.1M cume. UK posted $1.5M at 657 screens, down -43% and a No. 3 rank for a running tally of $12.6M.