Box Office: 'Wolf Warrior 2' Cracks 100 All-Time Biggest Grossers List
Scott Mendelson , CONTRIBUTOR
'Wolf Warrior 2'
Wolf Warrior 2 has now earned $685 million after earning $83m over its third Fri-Sun frame in China. That’s a mere drop of 50% from last weekend’s record-crushing $162m Fri-Sun frame and down just 41% from its opening weekend of $141m two weeks ago. Yes, the Chinese action sequel made more money in its second weekend than in its opening weekend. Moreover, that $162m Fri-Sun cume was the biggest non-opening weekend ever, ahead of
The Force Awakens’ $149m in Christmas of 2015. Sadly, the $83m third frame was below
Force Awakens’ $90m third weekend, so no new records there.
The film has earned $683 million in China after 17 days (including Thursday previews), along with $2m in North America on just 32 screens. So, here’s the gist: The film is now the first non-Hollywood release ever to crack the top-100 list of all-time biggest global box office champions.
And with around $680m, it is now in 99th place, between
Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation ($682.7m in 2015) and
The Hunger Games ($694.7m in 2012).
I don’t have Monday numbers at the moment (thanks to time zone magic, today is technically Tuesday in China), but if it hasn’t crossed $700m in China already, it will in a day or two.
Speaking of which, with a relative downturn in that third weekend, which would still be insanely leggy for any other movie of this scale, the film is probably not going to catch the $937 million North American gross of
Star Wars: The Force Awakens or the worldwide total of Universal/Comcast Corp.'s
Despicable Me 3 ($921m-and-counting) to win the summer. But with $680m+ and counting, it is already the third-biggest single-territory gross in history, behind only the North American totals of
Avatar ($760m in 2009/2010) and
The Force Awakens ($937m in 2015/2016).
By the way, if you don’t count the online ticketing fees that have only recently been included in the respective Chinese box office, then the film
actually sits in fifth place in single-territory grosses, with $644 million, or behind
Jurassic World ($652m in 2015),
Titanic ($658m in 1997/1998 and then 2012) and the other two aforementioned biggies.
But even with that
Roger Maris asterisk, it’s all-but-certain to end up in second place behind Walt Disney’s
Star Wars sequel when all is said and done. Heck, it’s entirely possible that it will be the biggest-grossing single-territory earner of 2017, as there is no guarantee that
Star Wars: The Last Jedi will reach the $800-$850m final total of
Wolf Warrior 2’s China run via its North American sprint. But that’s a conversation for another day.
One fun milestone that the Wu Jing action spectacular has already notched is essentially becoming the biggest “part 1 to part 2” jump for any modern sequel where both films played in somewhat wide release.
Wolf Warrior 2 has earned $685 million thus far, which is 7.7x the $89m Chinese total of
Wolf Warrior back in 2015. If you look at North American sequel jumps, that’s ahead of the likes of
Austin Powers ($54m for
International Man of Mystery/$204m for
The Spy Who Shagged Me) and
Terminator 2: Judgment Day ($39m/$204m) and
The Dark Knight ($205m/$534m).
The only two bigger such jumps were for
Boondock Saints ($30,471 in five theaters vs. $10.2m for
Boondock Saints II in 524 theaters nine years later) and Robert Rodiguez’s gunslinger series ($2m for
El Mariachi on 88 screens vs. $25m for
Desperado on 2,027 screens). But as you can see, those franchises began as limited runs and went wide for the sequel. Otherwise,
Wolf Warrior 2 has taken the biggest such jump for any wide release film (in North America or elsewhere) that I can find.
So, that’s enough for one update.
It is all-but-certain that Wolf Warrior 2 will become the second film in history to earned $800 million in a single territory. So now the only questions are how far it’ll go, how well
Wolf Warrior 3 will perform and how the almost inevitable English-language, PG-13 remake will play out.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...-all-time-biggest-grossers-list/#641977d843a4
Congratulations China