Box Office: Yes, 'Terminator Genisys' Has Outgrossed 'Mad Max: Fury Road'

As I mentioned in passing the other day, not only has Paramount and Skydance's Terminator Genisys passed the $400 million mark worldwide, but it has also indeed passed the worldwide total of Mad Max: Fury Road. The critically-beloved action sequel, universally hailed as one of the best films of the summer and the year, pulled in strong domestic numbers in the form of a $45 million debut and a $152m final. Comparatively, Terminator Genisys pulled in a $44m Wed-Sun debut, including a $29m Fri-Sun weekend, which ended with the film in freefall and just $89m domestic. Both films cost around $150m to produce and both films earned pretty similar overseas numbers prior to early last week. Mad Max: Fury Road has earned $221m overseas for a $374m worldwide cume. As of ten days ago, Terminator Genisys had earned $235m overseas, which gave the film a $324m worldwide total. So what changed?  In a word, China.

As you know, Terminator Genisys opened in China on August 23rd and it snagged a $27 million single day gross from the territory. That was the fourth biggest opening day for an American film ever in China, ahead of Jurassic World ($17.7m), and just behind Transformers: Age of Extinction ($30m), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($33m), and Furious 7 ($63m). It has since gone on to earn $92.2m in China over the last eleven days, officially eclipsing its domestic total in the bargain. Its new worldwide total is just shy of $420m worldwide, meaning that the $155m is within an earshot of potentially tripling its budget. Yes, the film had the good fortune to open at the end of a mid-summer blackout period on American exports and yes China takes a larger chunk of the ticket sale than other territories, and yes there is going to be a lot of US competition this month in the form of Ant-Man, Minions, and Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (also from Skydance). But the biggest reason Terminator Genisys has now vastly outgrossed the Tom Hardy/Charlize Theron sci-fi actioner is that the former didn't even play in China at all.

As of this writing, Mad Max: Fury Road has no firm Chinese playdate locked up. That could of course change at any moment. But presuming that the fourth Mad Max film does not become one of the 34 Hollywood films annually selected to play in China this year or next, that means that the main reason that Terminator Genisys is a significantly bigger hit than Mad Max: Fury Road is because one played in China and the other didn't. Now I'm not saying that Mad Max 4 would have done as well as Terminator 5. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a huge draw in China and elsewhere overseas, while Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are not. There are reasons Terminator Genisys did great in China just as there are reasons it did poorly in America. But even a $75m performance in China, or about on par with Kingsman: The Secret Service or Gravity, would have put the film on equal footing with a plausible over/under $450m worldwide cume. As China becomes a bigger and bigger marketplace for American blockbusters, being one of those 34 chosen ones will give certain movies a distinct and perhaps arbitrary advantage over other films in the race for global box office glory.

Obviously the fact that one film outgrossed another is irrelevant in terms of artistic quality and theoretical legacy. And if Warner Bros./ Time Warner Inc. makes a sequel to Fury Road it will be because they think it has the potential to capitalize on the first film's popularity in a Bourne Supremacy/Batman Begins fashion (relatively speaking). That may not be a great bet, and they definitely need to make sure they play in China next time out, but that's a conversation for another day. And if Paramount/ Viacom Inc. goes ahead with a sixth Terminator film, it will be because they just want another franchise, they don't want to admit defeat, and because they think they can avoid the Tomb Raider Trap while cutting the budget and increasing overseas marketability ala G.I. Joe: Retaliation. But this orange-to-orange comparison highlights how key a marketplace China has become, especially considering that not every American blockbuster will even get a shot in their theaters.

Would a $365 million gross for Walt Disney's  Ant-Man be good enough for a sequel absent what is sure to be a windfall in China this month? Can China help push Minions not just past the $1 billion mark (already done) but into the realm of the very highest grossing movies of all time? Can Adam Sandler's Pixels go from an underperforming (but not catastrophic) whiff to an genuine hit? Can Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, which will pass $500 million any day now, get to a box office plateau where it might actually challenge Spectre globally? That's a lot of "if, and, and but"s. Yet, perhaps by default and with no disrespect to Everest, Hotel Transylvania 2, and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, all of the fun box office action this month with not be in America, but rather in China. And it will also allow me to finally pen that "Marvel Phase 2 Box Office Report Card" that I've been itching to do for months.