20th Century Fox's X2: X-Men United grossed an emphatic $69,270,300 outside North America this past weekend in what was the most ambitious - and most lucrative - day-and-date global release ever staged by a studio.

Adding in the simultaneous $85,558,731 taken in domestically, the global total of $154,829,031 for X2 represents the biggest ever worldwide opening weekend yet recorded for a theatrical release.

In terms of international opening weekends, the $69.3m raked in from overseas circuits ranks as the second best ever behind only The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, whose own $87.9m total came from 27 territories.

But whereas The Two Towers' reaped the full benefits of a five day holiday weekend wherever it opened last December, X2's own five-day release pattern was somewhat more staggered, with Fox opening the film in some territories such as France and Mexico last Wednesday, but waiting until Saturday before debuting in Japan, for example.

X2 opened at number one in 92 of its 93 weekend territories, with only Japan being the exception. Among the many highlights were a superb European run, where the sequeloutperformed the 2000 original by considerable margins in many cases, and arecord-strewn rampage through Latin America.

There were mighty bows too in Asia and, significantly, strongperformances in territories that have been severely hit by the SARS virus.

According to early information from the studio, the day-and-datestrategy also appears to have thwarted video piracy, with incidence down to anear-zero level in Asia.

With number one openings in virtually all major territories, which in mostcases included previews, X2 led the way in the UK, where it grossed $11.1m on 447 screens,opening 50% bigger than the original.

In France it took a mighty $7.5m on 701 screens, nearly double theopening gross of X-Men.Germany produced $6.7m on 900, while the Spanish box office reached $4.9m on378, doubling the original's opening gross.

Sweden yielded $770,000 on 75 screens while Switzerland (bothFrench and German-speaking regions) drew $783,000 on 94. In Italy, X2 grossed $2.8m on 300.

Leading the way across an unstoppable Latin American run was a$5.6m Mexican bow on 755 screens, resulting Fox International's biggest everopening in that country and the second biggest industry bow of all time behind Spider-Man.

It was a similar story in Brazil, where the superhero sequelgrossed $2.4m on 400 screens for the same set of records, trailing Spider-Man by 12% in the second biggest industrylocal opening gross ever.

In Venezuela it took $370,000 on 65 screens for the biggest industryopening of all time there.

Argentina produced $423,000 on 88 screens , Chile scored $313,000 on 42 andPuerto Rico yielded $885,000 on 86 screens for Fox's biggest ever opening and thesecond biggest industry debut of all time.

In the Asia-Pacific region, X2 grossed an impressive $4.5m on 358screens in Australia and claimed 90% market share in South Korea with $2.5m on177.

But In a rare muted opening, the film managed $3.1m on 440 screensin Japan.

X2'smutants seemed impervious to SARS in three territories where the virus hasdecimated theatre-going and box office in recent weeks.

In Hong Kong it grossed $792,000 on 55 screens for the secondbiggest industry opening ever in April.

Singapore yielded a little over $1m on 50 screens or Fox's biggestever opening and the third biggest industry bow of all time.

Thailand also saw strong returns as X2 grossed slightly more than $1.1m from250 for the distributor's second biggest bow ever and the fifth all-timeindustry mark.

In Taiwan, the film opened on $657,000 on 130 screens, a decentresult that was hampered by the more recent manifestation of SARS and widemedia coverage of the virus.

The weekend also appeared to be a ringing endorsement of Fox'santi-piracy strategy, which partly informed the decision to releaseday-and-date across the world.

Remarkably, the distributor reported only a single pirate copycirculating in Asia before theatrical release in regional markets.

That copyappeared in China and took the form of a subtitled tape that appeared to havebeen recorded on a camcorder during an Asian theatre screening.