International Weekend: Wallace and Gromit a Smashing Success
October 19, 2005
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit crushed the competition on the international charts this weekend earning a stunning $26.4 million in just eight markets for an early international total of $40.3 million.
Unsurprisingly, the film's best market was the U.K., which is the home of Nick Park and Aardman Animations.
There, the film pulled in an amazing $11.3 million on 502 screens over the weekend ($16.2 million previews), and beat the nearest competition by a factor of nine.
The film also opened in first place in France with $2.88 million on 538 screens, Germany with $2.28 million on 680 screens, and in Austria with $225,000 on 94 screens.
As for holdovers, the film fell just 23% to $1 million in Mexico for a $2.65 million total there, and 17% in Spain with $830,000 for the weekend and $2.5 million in total.
It wasn't so fortunate in Australia and New Zealand, falling 54% and 78% respectively, but it was a post-holiday weekend there and large drop-off for a film of this type is expected.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remained in second place with $5.6 million over the weekend and $244.2 million internationally.
It had one of its final openings, taking top spot in Greece with $737,000 on 57 screens, the best opening of the year in that market.
But its biggest market continues to be Japan where the film added $2.1 million to raise its six-week total to $38.7 million, while securing its sixth first place finish.
The 40-Year Old Virgin added another $4.7 million on 1,700 screens in 26 markets to its international total of $34 million.
The film fell a tiny 24% during its second weekend in Australia and that allowed it to remain in top spot ahead of the opening weekend of In Her Shoes by less than $400, $1,215,744 to $1,215,417.
The film also held up well in Germany, slipping by just 21% to third with $1.06 million on 551 screens for a three-week total of $5.83 million.
Roberto Benigni's latest film, The Tiger and the Snow, opened in its native Italy and easily took first place with $3.74 million on a record 800 screens.
This result is even more impressive when you take into consideration that Benigni led a protest that shut down nearly half of all theatres on Friday; the protest was directed at the government over proposed cuts to funding for the Italian film industry.
It will be interesting to see how well the film holds up in this market and how well it translates into other markets.
Fifth place goes to Flightplan, which opened in first place in both Hong Kong with $620,000 on 26 screens and Denmark with $186,000.
Overall the film has made $10.5 million, including $2.5 million this weekend, but it is still early in its international run.
Filed under: International Box Office, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The 40 Year-old Virgin, Flightplan, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit