SurpriseUS hit Dodgeball opens in its first major international territories thisweekend and distributor 20th Century Fox will be hoping that star Ben Stiller -whose Starsky And Hutch is now coming to the end of its better thanexpected international run - can drive the film to a strong internationaltotal.

Dodgeball'sbroad comedy resulted in a $113m US gross, making the film Stiller'sbiggest hit since 2000's Meet The Parents. And Parents almostmatched its domestic take with a powerful $164.2m international run.

Dodgeball opens onAugust 27 in the UK, with 325 prints going out over the holiday weekend. Thefilm hits Mexico on the same day with 200 prints.

Foxintroduced another surprise success, Garfield, to Russia on May 26 with 185 prints. On the heels of its $74.4m US run, thenewspaper comic strip adaptation (which also opens this weekend in Norway) hasso far grossed a healthy $52.9m from international markets.

Other Foxlaunches are The Girl Next Door, which went out with 130 prints inAustralia on May 26 (with its international total now at $9.8m), and NeverDie Alone, which opened the same day in Germany with six prints.

BuenaVista International (BVI) has Stiller's Starsky & Hutch and opensthe film in Italy, one of its last big markets, on May 27, with 350 prints. Theseventies TV take off, which made $88.2m in the US, has so far grossed $73.8minternationally.

For the UKholiday weekend, BVI opens Raising Helen with 300 prints. The launchgives the Kate Hudson comedy one of its last remaining chances to bump up its$9.9m international total.

BVI's TheVillage opens in a trio of smaller territories this weekend. The studio's KingArthur gets no new launches this week, but with territories including SouthAfrica, Brazil and Italy still to come the Jerry Bruckheimer epic should haveno trouble breaking the $100m barrier (its current total is $95m from 67territories) and will soon have more than doubled its disappointing US gross of$51m.

Universalwill be looking to build on early results from The Bourne Supremacy withthe international spy thriller's Aug 26 release, through UIP, on 300 Australianscreens. The sequel has so far grossed $15.6m from five territories.

TheChronicles of Riddick, another Universal sequel handled, in mostterritories, by UIP, could make the most of the UK holiday with its Aug 27launch on 408 screens. Also opening this weekend in Spain, on 227 screens, thesci-fi thriller has so far grossed $26.3m internationally.

UIP'sother launches are the Paramount comedy Mean Girls, which has grossed$27.1m so far outside the US and opens this weekend in Germany and Italy, andDreamWorks' noir thriller Collateral, which opens in Brazil. With TomCruise headlining, Collateral has so far amassed $5m from territoriesincluding Singapore, Mexico and Argentina.

Details ofinternational releases from Columbia TriStar and Warner Bros were not availableat press time.