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[Ripclawe]

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110081820131478566,00.html?mod=mm_main_promo_left

"Remember the duds of summer? Disney's swashbuckler "King Arthur" -- no box-office Camelot. Then there was Brad Pitt stumbling in sandals in "Troy." And "The Terminal" pretty much proved true to its name.
Actually, all three films ended up turning handsome profits. In each case, box-office receipts from outside the U.S. far outweighed domestic returns, sometimes by a factor of three or more. For example, "Troy," which Warner Bros. released in May, made $133 million in the U.S., but nearly triple that -- $363 million -- internationally. The "Troy" DVD, which is also expected to sell well overseas, hasn't been released yet.

The focus on the foreign market has even caused studios to change who gets cast and where movies are made. "Ocean's Twelve," which will be released Dec. 10 and is the sequel to the 2001 caper flick, "Ocean's Eleven," was deliberately set in Europe and filmed in Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, to "enhance the movie internationally," says Alan Horn, president of Warner Bros. Pictures. "Ocean's Eleven" pulled in $183.4 million at the U.S. box office, but $267.3 million overseas. Mr. Horn says he expects "Ocean's Twelve" to do more overseas than "Ocean's Eleven" did.


"Ocean's Eleven" and its sequel both feature among their many stars Brad Pitt, who's wildly popular in Japan, where women are the most frequent moviegoers. James Ulmer -- the creator and publisher of the Ulmer List, a directory that ranks the cachet of actors in markets around the world -- says Japanese women frequently go to openings on Wednesday with girlfriends, then drag their boyfriends again on Saturday. (Women overseas are also driving the careers of some other Hollywood stars: In the United Kingdom, Hugh Jackman, star of this summer's monster epic "Van Helsing," and Orlando Bloom of "The Lord of the Rings" are "almost a Beatles syndrome," Mr. Ulmer says.)

The foreign factor also leaves a window of hope for Warner's "The Polar Express," which has made news with its distinctly dim $34.4 million at the U.S. box office so far. The holiday movie cost $165 million to make, and marketing costs are estimated at $75-million at least. Reports of the film's shaky opening have already "condemned" the film in the U.S., says Mr. Horn. He believes that after international ticket sales and DVD/home video sales are counted, "it'll be fine." But that could be a year or more from now.

 

[thefit]

Good to see the rest fo the world has taste.

 

[SKluck]

Well, there are 5.8 billion other people in the world.

 

[retardboy]

Haha, they all gobble up our crap!

 

[Lathentar]

Good to see the rest fo the world has taste.

King Arthur, The Terminal, and Troy are decent at best.

 

[kumanoki]

Why is this news? We all know Hollywood is out of ideas.

/thread

 

[The Faceless Master]

you would think that the entire rest of the world would be more important anyway...

 

[Meier]

Yeah, I've been following these titles' international numbers on the BOM International wrap-up. Troy's numbers were very reminiscent of The Last Samurai which did absolute huge business overseas (more than triple its domestic take) last year after a fairly tepid run in the US (passed 100 million in Japan which is just about unheard of outside of Miyazaki films recently and Titanic). The Day After Tomorrow also managed to do about double its domestic take and finished up with some $543 million worldwide.

For the most part, the major blockbuster style movies such as epics almost always fare very well in the overseas market even if they dont do as well in particular in America.

 

[Mega Man's Electric Sheep]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban made 249 million here, which is nothing to sneeze at, but when you add the worldwide numbers, it made 789 million, which is even more than Spiderman 2's 783 million worldwide. So worldwide numbers often make a movie become much more successful than it appears to be based on what it earns here.

 

[Ripclawe]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban made 249 million here, which is nothing to sneeze at, but when you add the worldwide numbers, it made 789 million, which is even more than Spiderman 2's 783 million worldwide. So worldwide numbers often make a movie become much more successful than it appears to be based on what it earns here.

Unfortunately for Hollywood, as Freud might have said, sometimes a bomb is just a bomb. Take the 2002 crash "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," starring Eddie Murphy. The movie cost more than $90 million to make, and took in $4.4 million at the U.S. box office -- plus another $2.7 million overseas. "I hoped you wouldn't bring that up," says Mr. Horn. "No. I think that's gone."

forgot to add this part.

 

[Mega Man's Electric Sheep]

That movie was the Gigli of its day, just with less public awareness. There are of course many total flops.