Along with the international debut of Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in about 14 markets, Disney this weekend also saw the China bow of Guardians Of The Galaxy. The Marvel space romp grossed an estimated $ 26.6M, scoring the No. 1 spot for the weekend, and the 3rd highest opening weekend for any Disney release there after 2013’s Iron Man 3 and this year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was also good for an all-time industry record opening in October. China now is catapulted into the No. 3 position among GOTG’s top offshore markets, behind the UK and Russia.
Guardians’ Middle Kingdom release comes during a month when Hollywood pics are packed wall-to-wall ahead of the big rollout of local movies that jam the year’s end. The film went out on Friday, just after the close of the National Day holiday week and saw its Saturday play likely dented by the fact that it was a designated working day, making this a non-traditional weekend. It’s estimated that $ 4M of the opening gross came from 165 IMAX screens, giving them around a 14% market share. Still playing in 22 territories, and with the first China frame factored in, GOTG’s global gross to date is $ 687M. The domestic portion of that is $ 326.07M; overseas is $ 361M. Italy has yet to bow, but is looming on Oct 22.
The international gross has surpassed Iron Man 2 ($ 312M), The Wolverine ($ 282M), Thor ($ 268M), Iron Man ($ 267M) and Captain America: The First Avenger ($ 194M).
As for Alexander, the rollout is staggered overseas with releases through January. The family pic notably entered Mexico and Russia this weekend. Across 32% of its international footprint, the movie grossed $ 2.8M including $ 1.3M in Mexico and $ 800K in Russia. The next major markets are Brazil (Oct 23), the UK (Oct 24), Spain (Nov 7), Australia (Dec 4) and Germany (Jan 1).
More to come as further weekend estimates arrive.
