20th Century Fox Hits $1 Billion At International Box Office

As Furious 7 was racing around the world breaking records for Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox quietly was hitting a milestone of its own. Fox International on Saturday crossed the $1 billion box office mark, passing that threshold faster than any year other than 2010, when Avatar reigned. Director Jim Cameron’s Avatar was a $2B box office monster overseas. This is the 12th consecutive year Fox International has crossed the $1B mark and the 15th time the team has helped the studio to cross the $1B mark.

“We’ve really had a very diverse slate of pictures this year,” said Craig Dehmel, evp of international distribution. “Although the big one for us has really been Kingsman: The Secret Service, Night at the Museum also made the majority of its money this year. Along with Taken 3, that really accounts for a little more than half of that billion in 2015.”

Fox saw strong performances this year from Kingsman: The Secret Service, which has taken in $247.1M and is still in 31 markets; Taken 3, which has grossed $142M overseas for the studio, has earned $238M+ to date (as EuropaCorp. retained/sold many of the markets); Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, which has grossed $182M; as well as DreamWorks Animation’s Penguins Of Madagascar, which taken in so far $106M in 2015. Penguins earned an additional $11.M in South Korea in 2015 but that was distributed by CJ.

In addition, DreamWorks Animation’s Home has contributed about $84.6M and still is playing in 69 markets, having pulled in another $20M this weekend. Also, much of the box office tally for its Exodus: Gods And Kings, which was released in December, was counted in 2015. That alone grossed $203M — of which $93.5M was tallied in 2015.

Best Picture Oscar winner Birdman flew in with $56M in 2015. Also, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel dished up a total of $43.2M.

Nancy Tartaglione contributed to this report.