'Wolverine' Doing Quite Well Overseas, Thank You

Tons of negativity surrounds X-Men Origins: Wolverine, even though it made $87 million in the U.S. in its opening weekend. But all the doom and gloom talk may be hard to justify going forward. The film cost about $150 million plus who knows how much in advertising. Let's just call it a quarter-billion-dollar movie. Counting up the global receipts, Wolverine is already well over half way to that number. Variety reports that in the international markets, Wolverine earned $73 million this past weekend, so its worldwide total is $160 million. Good movie or bad, that's a big start. The UK led the way for the new X-Men movie with $9.8 million. This compares favorably to X-Men: The Last Stand, which opened with $76 million and wound up making about $225 million in other countries. So, supposing around $200 million in the U.S. and another $200 million overseas, that's roughly $150 million more than the total costs for the film, conservatively. The question is how Fox interprets those numbers; studios don't spend a dollar to make less than two in return, which is the case here before you head to the DVD and TV rights figures. Still, you have to believe the studio wanted a $500 million total box office here, showcasing arguably the second most popular Marvel character in the movies while hoping for more spin-offs. But the global box office so far, while maybe not hitting the target, will mean it's not going to be a flop. With some creative accounting, especially given how competitive the first five weeks of this summer are, Fox may be a bit relieved, even encouraged.

Comments

[BobbyJ]

There's no doubt that Wolverine will be a hit in the box office, the story was great and Hugh Jackman really brought justice to the character. How I wish I can level up my character like that of Wolverine on World of Warcraft using bunch of wow gold. :) For sure, the Hordes will be defeated easily! LOL