International Box Office: Frozen II Freezes Out the Competition

December 5, 2019

Frozen II

Frozen II dominated this past weekend’s international box office chart by almost as large a margin as it did last weekend. The Disney sequel earned $163.8 million in 45 markets for totals of $451.0 million internationally and $739.8 million worldwide. This includes a trio of first-place openings in major markets, led by Russia at $13.7 million on 1,682 screens, while it also topped the charts in Italy ($8.6 million including previews) and Australia ($6.6 million). Furthermore, according to Disney, the film is already the highest-grossing animated film of all time in both the Philippines ($12.2 million) and Indonesia ($11.1 million). It has already topped the original in a number of other markets, mostly in Asia, led by China with an impressive running tally of $91.0 million in just two weeks.

Knives Out opened in second place with $29.34 million on 67,541 screens in 53 markets during its international debut. Its biggest market was China, where it opened in third place with $13.64 million on 61,786 screens. This is better than expected, as films like this don’t often do well in China. It also did well in the U.K. ($3.80 million on 641 screens) and in Australia ($1.99 million on 278), but it was only about half as strong in those markets as it was here, given the relative sizes involved. The film also scored second place in Russia with $2.04 million on 1,420 screens, which is again about half as much as it earned here, given the relative size of the market. It is still doing better than anticipated, but not by as large a margin as it did domestically.

Two Tigers opened in second place in its native China with $19.79 million over the weekend for a total opening of $20.11 million. That territory alone was enough to put it in third place overall internationally.

Ford v Ferrari fell to fourth place with $10.2 million in 48 markets for totals of $62.3 million internationally and $143.3 million worldwide. The film has yet to open in over a third of the international marketplace, including South Korea, where it opens this weekend.

Last Christmas returned to fifth place with $8.0 million in 41 markets for totals of $31.7 million internationally and $68.0 million worldwide. The film opened in a trio of major markets, but struggled in all of them. Its biggest market was France, but it only managed seventh place there with $819,000 in 315 theaters. It earned fourth place in Spain with $490,000 in 267. The film did earn first place in Brazil with $567,000 in 463 theaters, but neither Frozen II nor Knives Out have opened in that market, meaning it had very little competition.

Filed under: International Box Office, Frozen II, Ford v. Ferrari, Last Christmas, Knives Out, Liang Zhi Lao Hu