This year, I was a bit curious what the most popular movies were. I knew what the most popular movie was, that being Avengers: Infinity War – which I personally have yet to see, since I haven’t taken the three-week correspondence course necessary to know what exactly is happening in the Marvel universe at this point – but beyond that I actually had not paid that much attention.
Looking at the worldwide gross, the top ten was not too surprising. Beyond Avengers you had Black Panther, the second Jurassic World and the second Incredibles in the billion dollar club, no big surprise there. Venom being the fifth most popular movie was a surprise, because I’ve never met someone who actually liked Venom, but it’s a big budget Hollywood movie. Big budget Hollywood movie is pretty much what you expect for a major box office hit.
The big surprises come just outside the top ten. Specifically, at number 12, where a film called Operation Red Sea sits, which made a total of $579 million. Right underneath it is Detective Chinatown 2, which made $544 million.
As you might expect, these two movies did not make much of an impact in North America, given that I imagine this is the first time many people have heard of those films. A full 99 per cent of their box office came from overseas.
This lead me to spend some time poking around looking at how different the numbers are when you compare domestic and worldwide box office.
I discovered that while only including overseas box office numbers doesn’t shake up the list that much, going with a strictly domestic box office changes it dramatically. Which tells you one thing, North America isn’t in control of what makes the most money anymore.
The two movies that were almost big enough to break the top ten will tell you who is. Both of those movies are from China, a nation that is also very fond of Hollywood action movies.
In fact, comparing the domestic and overseas gross of different film tells you some unexpected things. Apparently only people in North America care about the Grinch, while Venom appears to get significantly better if you add subtitles. Black Panther was the only movie in the top ten to make the majority of its money from the domestic box office – in fact, Black Panther was the most popular movie in North America last year, not the Avengers.
Not that it matters, because the foreign box office take for The Avengers was larger than the combined box office take for Black Panther, and both were made by Marvel anyway.
I wonder what’s going to happen to the entertainment industry when China realizes they’re in control. Audiences are happy to go to the latest Marvel movie right now, but if your market can make or break a movie on its own, isn’t there incentive to just make your own movies? Films with local actors in the same language you speak every day.
It’s not going to change any time soon, especially since China is clearly wondering how Iron Man is going to get himself out of the pickle he found himself in, but at some point they have to notice they’re in control, and at that point we’re going to see a big change in the fortunes of Hollywood studios.
