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New York - The re-engineered Pirates of the Caribbean sequel On Stranger Tides found its smoothest sailing overseas, where it took in a record $256.3m at the international box office, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
That surpasses the previous record foreign opening of the sixth Harry Potter film, 2009's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which earned $236m internationally.
Disney said On Stranger Tides, the fourth Pirates instalment, earned $90.1m domestically. Its combined worldwide total is $346.4m , the fourth largest global opening ever.
Risky reboot
The new 3D film jettisons co-stars Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, but brings back Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. Chicago director Rob Marshall took the helm from Gore Verbinski, who directed the trilogy. Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane introduce new characters.
It was a risky reboot considering the popularity of the previous Pirates films. The last, 2007's At World's End opened with $114.7m.
But At World's End was also badly reviewed and disappointing to much of its audience. For Disney, which has expansive merchandising and theme park tie-ins to Pirates of the Caribbean, it's a crucial franchise. The first three movies earned a combined $2.7bn worldwide.
"The whole play of this particular movie was based on a worldwide release because of our feeling of how strong the international marketplace would be," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution at Disney. "Johnny is not just a domestic star. Johnny is an international star."
Viane said the result vindicated the franchise's new look, that audiences "loved the rebooted attitude." Viane didn't comment on whether this meant a subsequent fifth film, but that seems extremely likely. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer already has a script in the works.
Word-of-mouth
On Stranger Tides was the only new film in wide-release on the weekend. In its second week of release, the acclaimed comedy Bridesmaids, starring Kristen Wiig, was second at the box office with $21m. That was an impressively small decrease of just 20% from the Universal release's opening weekend of $26.2m.
The slight decrease was even less than popular comedies like The Hangover and Wedding Crashers, which had similarly sustained business due to strong word-of-mouth.
Last week's top film at the box office, the comic book adaptation Thor, from Paramount, slid to third place in its third week of release. It earned $15.5m, bringing its cumulative total to $145.4m.
Though On Stranger Tides had the best North America opening of the year, the international revenue was the larger story. The film traded on its foreign appeal by casting international stars like Cruz and setting itself in bright tropical locales.
"This proves the importance of the global marketplace," said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.
The film performed especially strong in Russia, China and India, accounting for $52.6m. It set an all-time record in Russia, taking in $28.6m.
The film benefited from higher ticket prices for 3D showings, but perhaps more importantly from IMAX screenings. On Stranger Tides set a global record for IMAX with $16.7m worldwide.
