Over here in the land of kangaroos, koalas and platypuses, the tale of the little robot who fell in love has been number one for three consecutive weeks! It even beat out Eagle Eye on its week of release and the one after! I seriously thought it didn’t stand a chance against this Shylando LaBloom action-packed thriller, but apparently people prefer a heartfelt romance story between two animated robots than a fast-paced, ‘appeal to the teenagers’, techno-thriller blockbuster!
Look the numbers up here and check out from Sept 18 onwards on the drop-down menu. Overall it has made a stellar $11,439,046. Probably fans’ repeat viewings and general positive word-of-mouth helped buoy it above horribly dismal flicks like Journey, Step Bros. and Mummy 3! Hahaha! Look at you go, Wall-E, FTW, man! 
sweet…beat eagle walle!!!
Yay Wall-E 
I hope it his the 1/2 billion soon!
Wall-E has put up an amazing fight, being Numero Uno at the Australian Box-Office for 3 weeks in a row! It even managed to beat Papi and Co. from the horror flick Beverly Hills Chihuahua, pushing it to the number two spot in its weekend debut!
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, as the premiere of DiCaprio and Crowe political “Aye-Rack” thriller Body of Lies managed to relegate our favourite robot to second place in its fourth week of release. Still, that puts it at a surprising advantage compared to newer films that would have appealed more to the adults (like The Duchess and My Best Friend’s Girl) but obviously didn’t.
Over in the Lion City, Wall-E got a headstart over Kangaroo Island, debuting at number 1 on opening weekend at the Singapore box-office from August 28-31, and maintaining that pole position in its 2nd weekend takings. It fell to 3 in the third, and remained at 6th for the fourth and fifth weekend, which is quite good staying power when up against heavyweights like Death Race, Mamma Mia, Bangkok Dangerous, Babylon A.D. and Disaster Movie.
urbancinefile.com.au/home/boxoffice.asp
boxofficemojo.com/intl/singapore/
Haha, heavyweights. Death Race is barely a featherweight. 
Though I have little interest for WALL-E, I must say that I am pretty proud of Pixar having such a good impact over the movie goers of the Lion City. Sure, it landed on the 6th spot in a matter of a month, but that just goes to prove that Pixar needs that extra push in film-making in the future. 
Good for Australia. I’ve tried to get other people to go see this movie, with only 4 successes so far, one a future dvd. That’s out of about 20 recommendations. One of my friends is from down under and hasn’t bothered to see it. Another fellow said his daughter had seen it 4 times and maybe with my advice, he will break down.
Domestic US gross: $221.6 M as of Monday morning, getting about $300,000 per week now with 4 1/2 weeks till Dvd. About a fifth of those who say they want to see it claim they will buy the dvd, and many who saw it will also do the same.
Now firmly in 5th place for 2008 , just $6M and closing behind Hancock. But Harry Potter will surely knock it down a notch 
. Only multiple award nominations may revive interest in theaters.
Harry Potter isn’t coming out till July 2009 now… Twilight is now taking it’s spot. 
Short update:
Latest international (outside N. America) numbers for Wall-E are $239.1m as of a few days ago (Oct 16th). It’s just now opening in Italy (and Japan will be in December). Let’s see how it does in Italy!
From Screen Daily:
“Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International’s Wall-E stands at $239.1m and opens in Italy on October 17.”
screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA … hSite.aspx
yeah, I finally saw it in Italy!
It is starting a bit slowly:
- friday: 400.000 €
- friday/saturday: 1.162.000 €
if it doesn’t reach 3 millions in the weekend that means it’ll have hard life… Kung Fu Panda has been a real success (it’s the most seen film in Italy so far, with near 17 millions €) and everybody is looking forward to Madagascar 2.
WALL-E goes against Disaster Movie (sadly it’s the same target…) and Mamma Mia (very strong), No problem (an italian comedy) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Anyway, if WALL-E will be a success it hopefully will reach KFP at 17 million €, if it will be a HUGE success it will end at 20 millions, else it will hardly reach 12-15 millions.
So Italy will add 20-25 million $ to the international box office of WALL-E.
I think (hope) that it will make a worldwide total of 550 million $, behind Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille only.
Yes mate,you hit that one right on the button…speilberg is finished…well,as long as he keeps insisting on stealing other ppl’s ideas(he gets sued and ALWAYS settles it with a hefty cash payout…well,he DOES have the money to pay them off and settle with NO liability…the usual speilberg payoff…research AMISTAD…lol)he’s done…gone.long live WALL.E!
Wall-E is almost at the $250m mark for overseas (outside North America) markets.
From Screen Daily, Oct 23rd:
“Wall-E has a shot at crossing $250m and currently stands at $248m”
screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA … hSite.aspx
One week ago (Oct 26) it was reported that Wall-E was the:
“…eighth biggest international release of the year so far.”
screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA … hSite.aspx
As of today, (Oct 31, 2008), Wall-E has now reached $255mil outside of North America.
“Wall-E has grossed $255m and will open in Japan, traditionally the most lucrative market for Pixar releases, in December.”
screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA … hSite.aspx
Thx for the correction. Anyways, Bond’s Q of S and Madagascar2 will provide the stiff competition in the box office. The last Bond film was regarded by many as their best ever, and Madagascar made $194M. I would agree the last Bond film ranked easily in the top handful, but the last Madagascar only rated a 6.5/10 in my book, worth the ticket, but not by much.
Not counting this weekend, Wall-E is at a domestic gross of over 222.5M as of Oct.30th. Foreign: it’s been pulling about $4M per week and just opened well in Italy. Now exceeding $1/4B overseas, it will almost certainly go over the 1/2 billion mark overall*. With dvd sales and merchandise, it will assure more funds for top quality future features, despite its $180M price tag.
For comparison, Ratatouille cost $150M and Nemo $94M. Rat had a huge overseas gross, particularly from France and Germany: this is a French word. So don’t think that Pixar was disappointed , they know that top-notch quality suffers in some quarters.
*So how well will Wall-E do in Japan? This is an interesting question, Nemo and Toy Story did spectacularly well and The Incredibles did quite well. But Rat was lukewarm and Cars did poorly. I’m not privy to the ad campaigns and release timing, but Japan isn’t a nation into big American cars, they laugh when they see yet another of our cars broken down along their roads. Now robots, thats a different matter. They love big cities, even big American cities. And they love spaceships and science fiction too. They will love Wall-E. And Eve looks sort of like she is wearing a kimono. Fat people - not sure here, few Japanese are fat. But they do like Pacific Islanders who come to Sumo wrestle. They worship what little agricultural land is available, and venerate their forests. They will love the plant.
I predict that they will go bonkers for this movie in December.
Edit on Nov30: Boxofficemojo is interestingly tracking the fairly rapid descent of QofS and Madagascar 2. Neither of these films, despite heavy promotion and media coverage on release is going to surpass Wall•E in the box office domestically! Oh sure, QofS did jaw droppingly overseas, but it’s just not that good and is facing stiff competition with Trans3. And Bolt is sopping up much of Mad2’s potential sales.
Quick box office update:
Wall-E is now the 8th best overseas box office picture of the year, and we now have the official opening date for Japan: Dec 5th.
From Screen Daily, November 10th:
“Wall-E currently ranks as the eighth biggest overseas release of the year after adding $1.6m for $262m. It opens in Japan on December 5.”
screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA … hSite.aspx
DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver: Yes, I think (and hope) they go bonkers for this movie in Japan…
Thinking about Japan’s fondness for cute things, they should definitely fall in love with WALL•E. I think the reason why Cars didn’t do as well internationally is because of the whole American racing car circuit didn’t appeal to countries who weren’t as into that sort of thing, plus it was a slow movie… Ratatouille I can’t explain, in regards to Japan not liking it.
Thanks for that update, miafka! =)
Good to know that WALL-E is still going strong, miafka. And I agree with DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver that Japan will love WALL-E. Whenever I think of Japan, I tend to think of the most up-to-date technology and that sort of thing, so I’m sure cute little robots will really appeal to them.
What’s the foreign box office total at? Is WALL-E at $500 million total yet?
I have to say I was hoping for a repeat of Ratatouille’s overseas performance. Or at least close enough that it could gross $600 million. Ah well.
With the world economy in a bad slump all year, I would not expect WALL-E to break records at the box office. US total box office this year has fallen (a rare event), and I expect the same worldwide. That makes The Dark Knight’s US box office all the more amazing (though it has not done quite as well overseas).
I am also very interested in how WALL-E will do in Japan. The Japanese indeed adore robots and cuteness. However, robot romance, apocalyptic settings and transhumanist themes are all common fare in Japanese anime and manga. What strikes us as a bold and fantastic experiment will seem to them merely a skillful retreading of well-trodden ground. Animation there long broke out of the ghetto it is trapped in elsewhere.
There are also cultural differences. EVE’s behaviour does not fit the Japanese ideal of womanhood, nor WALL-E’s of manhood (though that might add to their charm). Conversely, the theme of dehumanisation from being shut in will resonate strongly, as will the idea of liberation through a return to nature. The Japanese are thankfully generally not averse to anti-consumerist or environmental themes.
However, the reaction of the Japanese audience is notoriously hard to predict, even for the Japanese themselves. They value consensus, which changes seldom, but also suddenly and violently. I have an intuition that it will be a smash hit there, but we can only wait and see. Remember, The Dark Knight completely bombed in Japan.
The Dark Knight was preceded by almost unprecedented fanfare about Heath Ledger’s acting and superseded by a bevy of soft films, until Eagle Eye came out 2 months later. Everyone likes a winner and if you hadn’t seen it, why spend the ten bucks on a question mark?
But your comments about Japanese anime are rather sobering, kaikaun. I remember my favorite cartoons in late high school were Japanese, American animation was falling by the wayside then. Hopefully, our American brand of robot animation will delight them, altho the Iron Giant didn’t.
E.S.: The total world box office now stands at over $488M. Wall•E is still making about $200K per week in domestic theaters, somehow, even with the dvd out, and ranked last week as the #28 grossing film. I think this is due to college fall semester film series of ‘good’ movies that students missed earlier that year. Not sure. Anyways, it’s always a good idea to track these venues, as you can see here!! : flicks.stanford.edu/
[Edit: Wall-E only made $5.5M its first weekend in Japan, half what I was expecting. So much for understanding them. Further Edit: as of 12/14/08 up to $12.65M in Japan. And total combined take has now just gone over $500M]
Edit: $32.5M after the 4th week in Japan, now moving along well with heavy competition there.
I think that WALL-E’s foreign gross is not quite good 
I think it will end up worldwide about $588 million.