Promising impressive box office returns from a six-day worldwide opening run, Paramount's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull charges into the global marketplace this weekend, havingstarted its international roll-out on Wednesday (May 21) and arriving in North America early on Thursday (May 22).
The much-anticipated sequel - with Harrison Ford returning after 19 years as the title character and Stephen Spielberg back in the directing chair - goes out through Paramount Pictures International (PPI) with a total of 12,000 prints in around 60 international markets.
After its Sunday screening at the Cannes festival, the family adventure debuts in France (with 949 prints), Belgium and Switzerland on Wednesday. On Thursday, it opens in Australia (539 prints), Brazil (500 prints), Germany (1,039 prints), Korea (500 prints), Mexico (850 prints), Russia (800 prints), Spain (718 prints), the UK (1,000 prints, and a Monday holiday) and more than 40 other markets. And on Friday (May 23), it reaches Italy (757 prints) and six more territories.
The only major market not going day-and-date is Japan, where PPI will open the film next month.
The mega-budget Paramount/Lucasfilm production hits North America first thing Thursday, getting screenings just after midnight Wednesday in some cinemas and spreading to almost 4,000 theatres over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.
It will certainly out-perform the franchise's previous entry, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which opened with $29.4m over the 1989 Memorial Day weekend and went on to gross $197.2m domestically. (The franchise's biggest domestic performer remains the first film, 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, with $209.6m.)
Whether Crystal Skull can approach the $139.8m four-day Memorial Day weekend record set last year by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, or even the $151.1m three-day weekend record set by last year's Spider-Man 3, remains to be seen.
Internationally, the new Indy will face limited competition from PPI's Iron Man in its fourth weekend and, in a handful of territories, Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in its second weekend. So getting well on the way towards beating Last Crusade's lifetime international take of $277m (the biggest for the franchise so far) should be feasible.
However, given that Crystal Skull will be playing in fewer small territories than either Spider-Man 3 (which took $230.5m from its first six days internationally, on the way to a $554.3m total) or At World's End (which started with $214m from five days, on the way to $651.6m), a record-breaking weekend outside North America will be hard to achieve.
Not surprisingly, other studios have avoided any major activity over the weekend, internationally or domestically.
The weekend's only other major-territory studio release comes in Indy-deprived Japan, where Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International (WDSMPI) opens Prince Caspian.
Elsewhere, Summit Entertainment's Love in the Time of Cholera opens on Thursday in Australia through Rialto (with 50 prints). And Summit's Never Back Down opens the same day in South Korea through Inmoa Entertainment (with 80 prints).
The much-anticipated sequel - with Harrison Ford returning after 19 years as the title character and Stephen Spielberg back in the directing chair - goes out through Paramount Pictures International (PPI) with a total of 12,000 prints in around 60 international markets.
After its Sunday screening at the Cannes festival, the family adventure debuts in France (with 949 prints), Belgium and Switzerland on Wednesday. On Thursday, it opens in Australia (539 prints), Brazil (500 prints), Germany (1,039 prints), Korea (500 prints), Mexico (850 prints), Russia (800 prints), Spain (718 prints), the UK (1,000 prints, and a Monday holiday) and more than 40 other markets. And on Friday (May 23), it reaches Italy (757 prints) and six more territories.
The only major market not going day-and-date is Japan, where PPI will open the film next month.
The mega-budget Paramount/Lucasfilm production hits North America first thing Thursday, getting screenings just after midnight Wednesday in some cinemas and spreading to almost 4,000 theatres over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.
It will certainly out-perform the franchise's previous entry, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which opened with $29.4m over the 1989 Memorial Day weekend and went on to gross $197.2m domestically. (The franchise's biggest domestic performer remains the first film, 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, with $209.6m.)
Whether Crystal Skull can approach the $139.8m four-day Memorial Day weekend record set last year by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, or even the $151.1m three-day weekend record set by last year's Spider-Man 3, remains to be seen.
Internationally, the new Indy will face limited competition from PPI's Iron Man in its fourth weekend and, in a handful of territories, Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in its second weekend. So getting well on the way towards beating Last Crusade's lifetime international take of $277m (the biggest for the franchise so far) should be feasible.
However, given that Crystal Skull will be playing in fewer small territories than either Spider-Man 3 (which took $230.5m from its first six days internationally, on the way to a $554.3m total) or At World's End (which started with $214m from five days, on the way to $651.6m), a record-breaking weekend outside North America will be hard to achieve.
Not surprisingly, other studios have avoided any major activity over the weekend, internationally or domestically.
The weekend's only other major-territory studio release comes in Indy-deprived Japan, where Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International (WDSMPI) opens Prince Caspian.
Elsewhere, Summit Entertainment's Love in the Time of Cholera opens on Thursday in Australia through Rialto (with 50 prints). And Summit's Never Back Down opens the same day in South Korea through Inmoa Entertainment (with 80 prints).
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