Looks like this might deserve its own thread...




Looks like a strong start, and with early strong word from China, the international market might honestly save this movie.

Its looking to do good in Singapore as well despite the video game movies not doing great in general.

That Russia opening is HUGE.

I'm predicting 500m outside of the US. It might just be enough to convince Universal do to another one.

If this did 500 outside the US they wouldn't need much more convincing than that.

But if it does that well internationally, why would it do as poorly as it seems it will in the U.S.?

Because that never happened before.

Depends on the definitions of well and poorly, but if I remmeber corrently, no, it has never happened that an US film made $500+ million overseas, but less than $100 million domestically.

The lowest gross domestic gross ever for a film that made $500+ million overseas is $161.3 million for Ice Age: Continental Drift. Even if you lower the OS bar to $400 million, the lowest is still Life of Pi with $125 million. Terminator: Genisys holds the record for the highest overseas gross with a sub-$100 million domestic total with $350.8 million OS. It is followed by The Golden Compass ($70.1 million domestic, $302.1 million overseas) and The Adventures of Tintin ($77.6 million domestic, $296.4 million overseas).

So, yeah, Warcraft making $500+ million overseas and less than even $125 million domestically would be something very very unusual.

We are counting just English language movies, right?

You're probably only referring to US films, but let's not forget The Mermaid, which grossed $550m overseas but only $3.2m in the US. Then there's The Intouchables with another staggering difference.

Yeah. And the rise of OS markets will just make these situations happen more often.

My first comment said "US films", I didn't find it necessary to repeat it again in my follow-up.

I'm aware of the OS success of movies such as The Mermaid and The Intouchables. But they did not receive major pushes in the US. The point I was making was that Warcraft IS getting a major release in the US, and it seems poised to bomb here and do very well overseas, which is not common at all. Just trying to figure out what is causing the disconnect between US and OS markets on this film. Is WoW just that much more popular OS?

I am still wondering if Warcraft will sustain long enough to do huge numbers in OS markets. Its most likely going to make most of its money in China. Universal won't really get too much out of that gross so it could still be the case that they won't make the second. Imagine it makes $600m OS and $300m comes from China and add domestic for another $100m (being very generous here).

While I agree on everything you just mentioned but Pirates 4 showed that a sub-$300m grosser can still make $1b and that was without China. If you include the growth of China then TF4 was helped a lot and became the second movie to do the same. So I don't think having a sub-$100m with $500m+ OS gross is out of reach. It was just an eventuality that hasn't happened yet.

Warcraft isn't actually made by Universal, they are just distributing it. It is being made by Legendary Pictures, which is owned by a Chinese company Wanda. I expect Chinese grosses to matter more to them than to an American company.

The OS is going to save this movie's ass big time just like it did for Pacific Rim and I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel was announced, but I don't believe that means it's guaranteed to do $100M+ here either. At best maybe $60-$65M which might even be enough to push it past $600M+ WW, but fantasy films make the majority of their bank OS and that's all that matters.

Legendary Pictures is a Chinese owned company? That's a news to me, thanks for the info Regardless I am sure Universal has a lot of stakes and say in the sequel, they are distributing it heavily and would earn some amount from its BO. But yeah I guess it makes the case very strong for a sequel now, one specially dedicated for OS/Chinese audience.

Depending on how big it does in China I think there is a chance for it to do $600m+ OS itself and still end with less than $700m+ WW. With xiayun's early reports I think it would open huge like $150m in China so I think it should do $250m+ in China alone.

So not only are they giving away game codes, card packs and champion figurines to ticket buyers, they've started to advertise a game where you can win Overwatch for PS4 or xBox One (don't know how many copies they're giving away) or a free all expense payed trip to Road to BlizzCon if you see the movie in its first week. They sure are giving it a promotional push.

Legendary Pictures' parent company is Wanda, a Chinese company. They bought it for $3.5bn.

Fantasy has always been more popular overseas and Warcraft is actually a huge, globally known brand. Also, people outside of the US/Canada don't really care about reviews (maybe in places like Paris and London, but not really outside of that).

What a load of bollocks.

Wow, I agree with Algren...

It's ok, I'm not Jewish. You can agree with me.