'2012' Continues to Blow Up Global Box Office

Last weekend, while nobody was looking, 2012 earned another $200 million around the world, meaning that in a matter of ten days, Roland Emmerich's latest disaster movie had already generated over $450 million in global ticket sales, making it one of the year's top ten films internationally. We know why people weren't paying attention to it: New Moon became the third-biggest opener in American box office history over the weekend, and 2012 slumped to third in the US. Still, its domestic gross is over $100 million already, and the apocalyptic action movie is probably in the black already, even with marketing costs and everything else. If it isn't, that date is not too far in the future. And Sony desperately needed the movie to do well. Paul Blart was the studio's king of the mountain through 10 months this year in America, and while it did very well in the profit margin game, it was not even among 2009's ten highest-grossing movies in the US marketplace. Think about that: Going into mid-November, Sony did not have a movie in the year's top ten. Looking ahead, Sony probably won't be so fortunate in December, either, so it would appear as though all of the eggs were in one basket. However, Sony has played in the global arena very effectively. If you looked just at the US numbers for Angels & Demons, you might think it was something of a disappointment. But because the studio devoted so much time and energy to marketing the film in other countries, a much smaller percentage of the tickets sold came in America than would normally be the case and it exploded overseas. That's going to be the case with 2012, as well, which is likely to get no higher than it already is in the domestic/foreign split, or around 25%. Supposing the studio's rather enviable worldwide roll-out continues to bear fruit for a few more weeks, 2012 should make it beyond $700 million - well over three times its budget - making it an enormous hit no matter what the US receipts show in the long run.