Overseas Box Office Churns Out $9.9 Billion in 2008

More evidence that, on the whole, movies are immune to tough economic times. While most other sectors are reporting at least some losses, the motion picture industry produced more revenue in 2008 than it did in 2007.According to The Hollywood Reporter, the total was up 4% from the previous year, and just shy of $10 billion worldwide, not counting the United States, which racked up $9.6 billion in receipts for the second straight year. The king of the hill was Paramount, which represented the year's biggest-grossing film in other territories (Indiana Jones), as well as Iron Man and the DreamWorks animated movies Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. All told, Paramount earned $2.037 billion, a new record for the studio. The Dark Knight helped push Warner Bros. into second place on the overseas charts. We tend to forget that I am Legend earned most of its money in other countries in 2008, because it was a December '07 release in the United States, but its $210 million in foreign revenue was a big reason Warners made $1.8 billion. In fact, Legend and the Batman sequel generated a third of the studio's earnings. Here's how the Big Six fared in 2008 around the globe: 1 - Paramount - $2 billion
2 - Warner Bros. - $1.8 billion
3 - Universal - $1.7 billion
4 - Fox - $1.6 billion
5 - Sony - $1.38 billion
6 - Disney - $1.36 billion