International Insider: ‘Warnamount’ Shocker; Box Office Downturn; BAFTA Tweaks

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures International Productions is ramping up two sequels to 2023 German box office hit The Three Investigators – Legacy of the Dragon (Die Drei ??? – Erbe des Drachen). Both adventure mysteries are co-productions from Wiedemann & Berg Film and Deutsche Columbia Pictures Filmproduktion in cooperation with Kosmos Verlag.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s box office revenue rose in 2023 to €495 million ($542,000) while the country’s admissions tally reached 70.5 million, representing a roughly 60% increase compared with 2022. Though Italian moviegoing figures – announced Wednesday in Rome by national box office compiler Cinetel – mark a substantial leap forward, they are still down roughly 23% compared with the country’s average box office intake during the period between 2017 and 2019. Prior to the pandemic, the benchmark of a good year was considered 100 million admissions.

Audiences didn’t have a lot of new choices, nor a mega late-December blockbuster to ring in the first weekend of the new year at the movies, but the studio titles on offer are still drawing crowds and seeing strong holds, particularly with ongoing holidays in many international box office markets. Milestones are also being set as Warner Bros/Village Roadshow/Heyday Films’ Wonka topped $300M overseas while Disney’s Wish crossed $200M worldwide and AMC touted a new benchmark for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. 

Timothée Chalamet and “Wonka” topped the box office charts for the third time in its four weekends in theaters.Warner Bros.’ family-oriented musical added $14.4 million in ticket sales according to studio estimates Sunday, bringing its total domestic grosses to $164.7 million.“’Wonka’ is following in the tradition of a film like ‘The Greatest Showman,’” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. That Hugh Jackman musical opened under $9 million in Dec.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.Deadline said the film, which stars Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon and centers around a family’s discovery that their pool is haunted, “falls off the deep end.”“Wonka” moved down a notch to second place, where it enjoyed sales of $4.3 million. This week, the Timothee Chalamet-led musical fantasy set a milestone, reaching $400 million in worldwide sales, Screenrant reported.

Timothee Chalamet looks as stylish as ever during an outing in West Hollywood, Calif.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K. and Ireland box office revenue improved 8.3% from £980.5 million ($1.25 billion) in 2022 to £1.06 billion ($1.35 billion) in 2023, according to numbers released by Comscore. However, the number was 23.5% below the 2019 pre-pandemic total of £1.35 billion ($1.72 billion).

Happy New Year, everybody. Jesse Whittock with you for the first Insider of 2024, as we look forward to bringing you the biggest stories throughout the year. Read on, and please and sign up here to get the newsletter delivered to your inbox every week.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The French box office jumped 19% in 2023 with an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) grossed from 181.2 million tickets, according to Comscore France. Unlike in 2022, when the top 10 was exclusively dominated by U.S.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Wonka,” a musical fantasy that has been the biggest hit of the holiday season, topped the box office on New Year’s Eve, closing 2023 on a sweet note. The film, which stars Timothée Chalamet as a more youthful Willy Wonka, grossed $22.7 million for the weekend and a projected $29.5 million for the four-day holiday. That brings the domestic gross to $140.2 million, a strong result for the $125 million production.

MONDAY AM writethru: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s delivering the motion picture industry a $9 billion-plus year at the domestic box office, a feat many thought was unimaginable with the lack of a mega-tentpole over the holiday, coupled by a Q4 impacted by the double strikes. The numbers were compiled from Comscore data and Deadline calculations. Comscore called 2023 at $9.03 billion yesterday.

Releasing three tentpole movies into December, Warner Bros is walking away with bragging rights to giving the holiday season an important boost – particularly given the absence of an Avatar or a Spider-Man as in recent years.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.“Wonka” also surpassed the $100 million earning mark domestically this week, as per Variety. Last week, the Timothee Chalamet-led musical fantasy had been dethroned by “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which is now in second place with $6.75 million in earnings.

according to Variety. That’s less than the $519 million worldwide earnings from the first “Ant-Man” film in 2015 and the $623 million the second installment earned in 2018 (not adjusted for inflation).

Naman Ramachandran “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” led the worldwide box office with a $108 million debut weekend, according to numbers released by Comscore. Warner Bros. and DC Studio’s “Aquaman 2” also topped the U.S.

led a crowd of new releases at the box office on the weekend before Christmas Monday. The DC and Warner Bros.

Two Indian films Salaar Part 1 – Ceasefire and Dunki buoyed the North American box office on a relatively quiet holiday weekend as Searchlight Pictures’ All Of Us Strangers had a solid per-screen openings and Poor Things a nice expansion.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” opened to $80 million at the international box office, which isn’t all that super considering those ticket sales are on par with eventual big-budget superhero disappointments like “The Flash,” “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” The comic book sequel, starring Jason Momoa as the king of Atlantis and directed by James Wan, has generated $120 million globally to start, including a weak $40 million in North America. The Warner Bros.

Warner Bros/DC’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom began offshore rollout on Wednesday, and with numbers through Friday included has grossed $40.9M in 73 international box office markets. This portends a full overseas opening in the $70M range. With domestic’s three- and four-day, the global start will top $100M.

Old habits die hard. So Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav just sat down with Paramount Global chief executive Bob Bakish to talk about merging, and the media business yet again confronted the possibility of a spasm of mega-deals reshaping the landscape.