Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment’s Dune: Part Two held strongly in its sophomore session at the international box office, adding $81M to handily cross the $200M overseas milestone, and reaching $367.5M globally.
We’ll dig further into Dune 2’s second frame below, including its China start. In the meantime, let’s look at what’s new this weekend.
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 came out kicking as it begins a staggered overseas rollout. The fourquel opened to $22.2M in 41 markets which rep just 23% of the international landscape, and put the global debut at $80.5M. Spain was the only major in this first suite as the Jack Black-starrer will continue adding markets in the coming weeks to align with holiday play; it goes to China on March 22.
The offshore start, excluding previews, is bigger than Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3 in like-for-like markets at today’s rates. It’s also above the comparable bows of Ice Age: Collision Course and Zootopia. A total 32 markets had the biggest opening weekend of the year for a studio movie.
Spain led play with $3M including previews. Friday’s opening was the second biggest opening day of the year and the best for an animated title since last summer’s Elemental. KFP4’s Saturday was the biggest for an animated title since Super Mario, and the biggest for DWA since Puss in Boots in 2011. The full weekend is performing above KFP2 and KFP3, and in line with Zootopia and HTTYD3 excluding previews.
Malaysia debuted on Thursday with the biggest studio opening day of the year, No. 3 biggest Universal animation opening day, No. 4 DreamWorks opening day of all time, and the top animated opening day ever including previews. The running total of $2.36M including previews is in line with HTTYD3 and KFP3, and above KFP2 excluding previews.
Indonesia bowed Wednesday with the No. 2 opening day of the year for a studio movie, and the second-best post-pandemic animation opening day (behind Minions: The Rise of Gru), as well as the No. 3 DWA opening ever (after KFP3 and HTTYD3). The full weekend was good for $2.1M including previews.
Vietnam debuted to the biggest opening day ever for an animated title. At current estimates of $1.94M, the weekend is the biggest Hollywood animated opening weekend of all time, the No. 3 biggest Universal opening of ever (after Fast films) and the No. 10 biggest non-local opening weekend in history. The start is over three times higher than KFP3.
Poland punched up $1.6M including previews, above the opening of Super Mario Bros, in line with Zootopia and Ice Age: Collision Course, and well above previous franchise titles (excluding previews).
Other early markets include Argentina ($1.2M and biggest opening day of 2024); Denmark ($1.2M and franchise-best opening); Chile ($1.1M and best DWA opening); and Singapore ($1M and best start of the year).
Turning back to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, the sci-fi epic added $81M from 72 international markets, just a 36% drop in the holdovers. The overseas cume is now $210.5M, putting global on its way to the four-century mark, currently with $367.5M through Sunday.
In like-for-like markets and using today’s exchange rates, the film is tracking 64% ahead of 2021’s Dune, 43% higher than Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, 36% over Godzilla Vs Kong, 3% above M:I7 and roughly on par with The Batman.
Notably new this weekend was China (where the movie is distributed by Legendary East). The estimated debut is RMB 142.1M ($20M), ranking at No. 2 in the market, narrowly behind Taiwanese title The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon. This is the biggest for Hollywood in 2024, and the best opening weekend ever for Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet. The IMAX China Network delivered $6.5M, a huge 33% of the total.
Dune 2’s overall China launch results were roughly on par with 2021’s Dune as well as higher than The Batman (+95%), Blade Runner 2049 (+183%), The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (+330%) and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (+772%). Audiences gave it a Maoyan score of 9.3, with Taopiaopiao at 9.6 and Douban rising to 8.3.
Elsewhere, of the 72 released overseas markets, the film ranked as the No. 1 in 57 and as the top U.S. title in 60.
Markets that saw good drops include France (-17%), Germany (-19%), Taiwan (-22%), Brazil (-23%), Holland (-23%), Spain (-27%), Australia (-29%), Italy (-32%), UK (-34%), Hong Kong (-34%), New Zealand (-34%), Singapore (-34%) and Philippines (-35%).
In IMAX, the sci-fi epic dipped by just 15% globally, with $27.7M from 1,600 screens. The overseas portion of that is $16.6M, down only 25% across the markets that opened last weekend. The international cume climbed to $35.8M and global is $72.4M or 20% of the worldwide cume to date.
The Top 5 markets overall to date are the UK ($24.8M), China ($20M), France ($19.4M), Germany ($18.2M) and Australia ($11.6M). Japan releases this coming Friday.
MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE
Bob Marley: One Love (PAR): $4.9M intl weekend (52 markets); $71.2M intl cume/$160.5M global
Anyone But You (SNY): $3M intl weekend (48 markets); $124M intl cume/$212M global
Migration (UNI): $2.4M intl weekend (79 markets); $156.7M intl cume/$282M global
Poor Things (DIS): $2.1M intl weekend (47 markets); $74.4M intl cume $108.4M global
Madame Web (SNY): $1.8M intl weekend (64 markets); $54M intl cume/$96.6M global
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training (SNY/CR): $1M intl weekend (42 markets); $23M intl Sony cume/$40M global Sony cume
Argylle (UNI): $830K intl weekend (83 markets); $49.8M intl cume/$94.6M global
Mean Girls (PAR): $133K intl weekend (14 markets); $31.9M intl cume/$104.3M global