Taken 2 passes the 40 million admissions barrier.
Taken 2 has accumulated more than 40 million admissions abroad. It has achieved the greatest success for a French production ever enregistered by uniFrance films, outdistancing The Fifth Element, which attracted almost 36 million spectators internationally in 1997. As is often the case, action films' runs are brief and their careers reach an end in many territories after only 3 weeks on in theaters.
The film has already racked up more than 1 million admissions in 6 different territories: Australia (Fox – 1.5 million admissions), Mexico (Fox – 2.1 million admissions), South Korea (Fox – 2.3 million admissions), China (China film Corp. – 3.4 million admissions), and the United States (Fox – 14.6 million admissions).
Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia rose to the top of the Portuguese box office (Lusomundo), with 41,000 admissions, the week it was released. The Portuguese public has always demonstrated great affection for the previous episodes. They have, in fact, been the 3 top scoring French films in this country since the beginning of the 1990s: Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cleopatra (Lusomundo – 396,000 admissions in 2002), Asterix at the Olympic Games (Lusomundo – 425,000 admissions in 2008), and Asterix and Obelix Take on Caesar (Lusomundo – 520,000 admissions in 1999).
However, the film has got off to a less illustrious start in German-speaking territories. After the first full week of its run, it had assembled 177,000 spectators in Germany (Concorde) and 51,000 spectators in Austrial (Constantin Film). In Russia, the film was released theatrically at the same time as Skyfall and Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (a minority French production - West Video, 576,000 admissions), but nevertheless managed to tally almost 280,000 admissions in 4 days.
Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia has so far garnered 690,000 admissions internationally.
The Intouchables has launched well in Australia (Village Roadshow), with 138,000 spectators for 66 prints. The film has once again captured the attention of an English-speaking public usually not keen on French comedies. Its American (Weinstein – 1.2 million admissions) and British (Entertainment Film Distributors – 287 000 admissions) performances lead us to believe that it will meet with similar success in Australia and New Zealand.
In Brazil (California Filmes), the film drew another 60,000 spectators during its 9th week and has now broken the barrier of 900,000 admissions. Between now and the next two weeks, it could become the second French film to pass the million Brazilian spectators' threshold. This threshold has otherwise only been reached by The Three Musketeers (Playarte Pictures – 1.4 million admissions in 2011), a minority-French production in the English language, since the beginning of 1990.
The Intouchables has now attracted 25.9 million admissions abroad.
Matthieu THIBAUDAULT
