Hollywood pics shine overseas

2006 foreign grosses set new record

By DAVE MCNARY

BVI's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' was one of the year's biggest hits in foreign markets.

With tentpoles driving overseas moviegoing, Hollywood majors saw 2006 foreign grosses rebound smartly by 9% and set a new record of $8.6 billion.

Final figures gave the five distribs (Disney's BVI, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros. and UIP, which handles Paramount, Universal and DreamWorks) an edge over the record $8.5 billion in 2004.

Fox led with $2 billion, followed by UIP with $1.84 billion, BVI with $1.8 billion, Sony with $1.63 billion and Warner with $1.3 billion.

The breakdown for UIP, which has been mostly transformed into separate foreign distribution operations for Par and U, consisted of $940 million for Universal, $537 million for Paramount, $342 million for DreamWorks and $33 million from acquisitions.

Fox's $2 billion marked only the fifth time that a distrib had hit that mark. UIP set a record in 2005 with $2.26 billion and Warner set the single studio mark in 2004 with $2.19 billion; UIP also bested the figure in 2004 with $2.1 billion and Fox hit $2.01 billion in 1998, thanks to "Titanic."

And in a deft PR ploy, Fox also announced Wednesday a $3.56 billion worldwide gross for the year, although that figure included the Fox Searchlight contribution.

The studio asserted that the number was the highest yearly figure ever for a slate -- but rival studios don't include specialty divisions in making that worldwide calculation. For example, the Disney/BVI worldwide mark of $3.4 billion in 2003 would have been far higher had it included such Miramax titles as "Scary Movie 3," "Cold Mountain," "Chicago," "Spy Kids 3-D," "Bad Santa" and "Kill Bill Vol. 1."

But a Fox exec insisted the Searchlight pics should be included in the worldwide calculation since studio toppers Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos greenlight the division's films and Fox oversees distribution while rival specialty divisions such as Miramax and Focus operate autonomously.

Without the Searchlight pics, the Fox worldwide figure for 2006 reached about $3.38 billion while Sony's was $3.34 billion.

 "Specialty distribution units have never been added together for the worldwide totals," said Mark Zucker, president of Sony Pictures Releasing Intl.

Tentpoles were the key to foreign success in 2006 as half a dozen films -- BVI's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Sony's "The Da Vinci Code" and "Casino Royale," Fox's "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and UIP's "Mission: Impossible III" -- all cleared the quarter billion-dollar mark in overseas grosses. And they accounted for better than 29% of the total for the five majors.

"You have to rely on creating franchises and memorable characters that really have a mainstream appeal, such as what we did with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and Capt. Jack Sparrow," said Anthony Marcoly, BVI's president for sales and distribution. "Since foreign audiences don't go to the movies as often as U.S. audiences do, having tentpoles is that much more important for international business."

Marcoly pointed out that nearly two-thirds of BVI's grosses came from three films -- "Pirates," "Cars" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" -- that are emblematic of the Mouse's strategy to focus on Disney-branded properties. And he noted that such pics have enabled Disney to bolster an already strong presence in such markets as the U.K., Japan, Germany, France and Spain, which accounted for 48% of BVI's grosses in 2006.

"Part of our strategy is to develop films that are going to overperform outside the United States," Marcoly added.

In Fox's case, about a third of its $2 billion came from sequels to "Ice Age" and "X-Men." It also saw impressive performances from "The Devil Wears Prada," which nearly hit $200 million and "Borat," "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties" and "Eragon" -- all of which topped $100 million overseas. Additionally, its "Night at the Museum" closed the year as the dominant pic in the foreign marketplace.

"Doing that with that many films was not easy to do," said Paul Hanneman, co-president of Fox. Intl. "With all our films, we do stick to a global message, because that's very important. But once we've done that, it's also crucial to tailor the campaign to the individual region and market."

Fox's victory marked only the second time in the past 13 years that BVI or Warner hasn't posted the top overseas number among the individual Hollywood studios. Fox led in 1998, Warner won in 1995 and then in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005 -- coinciding with the release of the four "Harry Potter" films -- while BVI won in 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2003.

Focus Features saw a sharp rise in its overseas grosses last year to $272 million, more than $100 million higher than 2005. The difference came almost entirely from "Brokeback Mountain" with $97 million outside the U.S. By contrast, New Line saw a decline of about $100 million to $180 million, thanks to the lack of solid overseas performers such as "Monster-in-Law."

Lionsgate generated a 39% hike to $148 million, thanks mostly to "Saw III" with $63 million and "Saw II" with $26.7 million.

And underlining the increasing prominence of foreign markets, the year also saw the second- and third-biggest films -- "The Da Vinci Code" and "Ice Age: The Meltdown" -- take in more than 70% of their worldwide grosses outside the United States. Most tentpoles tend to take in about 50% to 65% of their worldwide grosses overseas, but with "Casino Royale" opening this weekend in Italy, the James Bond pic will likely join that small group of U.S. studio films.

"Da Vinci," the "Ice Age" sequel and "Casino Royale" don't really fit into the previous profile of the 70% group -- an odd mix of historical epics like "Kingdom of Heaven," "The Last Samurai," "King Arthur," "Troy," "Alexander," along with "Schindler's List," "Die Hard: With a Vengeance," "Match Point," "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," "The Beach," "Sliding Doors" and "The Fifth Element."