For reasons I don't quite understand, I am fascinated by the business of Hollywood. Always have been. One of the early joys of the Internet for me was next-day reporting of weekend box office grosses. "You're telling me that if I get online with America with this magical device I will no longer have to wait three days for Entertainment Weekly to inform me about grosses that are already a week old? I'll have all the Internets, thank you."
Please don't judge me.
Anyway, the rise of the international box office has been a fascinating development. Trying to discern what will sell overseas—and in which territories—is a fun game to play. Especially in this, the age of the nine-figure-production-and-advertising-budgets. Domestic box office alone will not carry a flick like Pacific Rim into the land of profitability. You need foreign markets. And what foreign market will take a shine to a Monsters Vs. Mecha flick like Japan?
I'm reviewing the film on Friday so I can't really talk about it yet. I certainly couldn't say if I enjoyed it quite a bit. What I could say is something the trailers and ad campaign make relatively obvious: Pacific Rim is like an anime film brought to life. You know who loves monsters and giant robots and monsters punching giant robots? The Japanese. I watched a fair amount of anime growing up (again, don't judge me) and Pacific Rim feels pretty familiar.
All of which leads me to wonder: How much will it gross in the United States? And will it gross more in Japan than domestically?
The answer to the second question is almost certainly no: the highest grossing film in Japanese history appears to be Howl's Moving Castle, at (a suspiciously round) $190M. Avatar comes second at $186M. I would be shocked if Pacific Rim went that high. But something in the $150M to $160M range?
Sure, why not.
Which brings us back to the first question: will it gross that much in the United States? Hard to say. Tracking—the data on who is interested in seeing a film—was reportedly soft (until it wasn't). This has been an odd summer: a crowded schedule and some less-than-great flicks have led to a couple of noted flops (White House Down, The Lone Ranger). But the buzz on Pacific Rim is pretty good even if the tracking is lacking. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the picture does better in American than Japan and winds up with $150M to $175M in grosses. Not a home run, but a solid double, after international grosses are taken into account.