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OVER THE WEEKEND, Legendary Pictures’ Warcraft opened in the United States with just over $24 million at the box office. For a summer blockbuster that cost an estimated $160 million to make, that’s a flop any way you look at it; in fact, it made less in its opening weekend than recent summer flops Battleship, The Lone Ranger, even Fantastic Four.
But in China, Warcraft isn’t just doing better than it did in the U.S.—it’s breaking records. In five days, the film raked in $156 million, beating out last year’s Furious 7 to become the country’s highest-grossing opening for a foreign-produced film. To put that in the context of last year’s undisputed global hit: in China, Warcraft made more in five days than Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens did in its entire theatrical run ($124 million).
It’s increasingly common for big-budget movies to make a significant portion of its box-office total outside the United States. But most films that rake in hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide still tend to make between 50 to 70 percent of that total internationally. Warcraft is on pace to become (deep breath) the highest-grossing American-produced film with the lowest percentage of its box office total coming from the U.S. in the past decade. “This will go down as a record breaker in terms of disparity between the North American box office and China,” says Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. “It’s never happened before. Not like this.” Despite tepid reviews and dismal box office results most places, Warcraft‘s runaway success in China in all likelihood means a sequel, even multiple sequels. That’s a bellwether for blockbuster film production and international distribution.
Thought Warcraft Tanked? Nope—It Changed Blockbusters Forever
The videogame adaptation broke box-office records for a foreign-produced film in China. That's a trend worth paying attention to.
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