The Robocop reboot opened on Chinese New Year with a strong $5.5M in three territories in Asia. It topped the box office in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore, according to Deadline.com.
Studios behind big-budget blockbusters are opening their films in foreign markets ahead of their U.S. release with more regularity nowadays. It’s all to build up buzz heading into their American debut.
The only problem with the solid figures from Jose Padilha's Robocop (Joel Kinnaman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson) is that it was drowned out by the $54M opening of The Monkey King (Donnie Yen, Chow Yun Fat, and Aaron Kwok).
I’m curious to see how it’ll do in the U.S. To me, the Iron Man films are the rebooted versions of the 1987 Paul Verhoeven hit. The new Robocop suit looks like a black version of the one donned by Robert Downey Jr.
Is there room for another version of Iron Man? With the latest Marvel film doing $1.2B worldwide, sure there is. If Robocop can capture a fifth of that business worldwide, I think Sony would be quite happy.
Budgeted at $120M, a worldwide gross of $240M will be enough for Robocop to break even. The video market will take care of marketing cost and profit. Now, we’ll just have to see if it can get there when it opens next week.
The original film starring Peter Weller cost just $13M and brought in $53M
