'Mamma Mia!' Knocks 'Harry Potter' Off the Top of Britain's All-Time Box Office

There has been a changing of the guard atop the all-time British box office charts, as Mamma Mia! has surpassed the first Harry Potter movie to become the country's all-time top grossing film. The official tally is $104.52 million, according to IMDB, which is a couple million more than Potter."This is fantastic," said Universal President David Kosse of Mamma Mia!, which has also become the studio's most profitable film. "The quality of the filmmaking and the resonance of this feel-good story have made the movie, like the stage play, a global phenomenon."Hard to deny the phenomenon part; Mamma Mia! has earned over $400 million in foreign markets, which as we discussed about a week ago when this changing of the guard appeared imminent, is roughly $50 million less than The Dark Knight and about $60 million less than Indiana Jones. That's in every other country in the world, mind you, and the ABBA-based musical cost so much less than the major blockbusters that the numbers begin to take on even greater importance when you consider the film's profitability.Hell, it's made so much money, one could infer from it that audiences worldwide love to hear Pierce Brosnan absolutely butchering melodies. Expect another big payday when the DVD is released on December 16th, followed by another spike in sales when the movie racks up a bunch of Golden Globe nominations because it's the only major awards-friendly musical of the year.

Comments

[Lengthy Johnson]

It's mad.

But Brits have always been mad about ABBA.

It's quite inexplicable.