'Twilight,' 'Skyfall' Set to Dominate International Box Office for Second Weekend

BERLIN – For international audiences, Bond and bloodsuckers remain the biggest box-office draws as Skyfall and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2 appear on track to dominate foreign markets for the second straight weekend.

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The final entry in the Twilight series bowed to around $200 million internationally last weekend -- a record for the franchise -- knocking Skyfall off the No. 1 spot in virtually all of the 61 markets in which it's debuted. In the U.K., Twilight generated £15.8 million ($25.1 million) in ticket receipts, nearly £2 million ($3.1 million) more than the tally for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 in the territory. It was both the highest-opening weekend for the franchise and the fourth-highest-grossing, three-day weekend of all time in the U.K., behind the last Harry Potter films and Skyfall.

In Italy, the title took in $13.2 million (€10.4 million) over its first five days, the highest five-day opening in the country this year. And Breaking Dawn -- Part 2 set an all-time record in Spain, where it drew $11.78 million (€9.2 million) for Alliance Films’ Spanish subsidiary Aurum Producciones, a three-day record for the territory.

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This mirrored the film’s strong performance in Latin America, where its it earned $18.1 million in Brazil and $12.2 million in Mexico.

With the final Twilight tracking 38 percent above its predecessor internationally, it looks all but inevitable that Breaking Dawn -- Part 2 will out-gross the $430.9 million of Part 1. In Germany, the biggest new territory for Twilight this weekend, Breaking Dawn -- Part 2 is on track to slightly out-perform Part 1 with admissions of between 1.4 million and 1.6 million, a bow that would rake in between $13 million and $15 million -- which is sufficient to take the No. 1 slot from Skyfall.

Not that anyone should count Bond out just yet. The 23rd entry in the venerable Brit spy franchise cleared $49.5 million last weekend, enough to push it past the half-billion mark internationally and some $669 million globally. Skyfall has shown strong staying power in several territories -- among them Germany, where it is predicted to add another 500,000 admissions in its fourth weekend, and the U.K., where it has earned upwards of $135 million so far and could become the top-grossing title in the territory if it can pass the $150 million high-water mark set by Avatar.

Skyfall’s global march is far from over, as it opens this weekend in Australia and New Zealand before moving to Japan in December.

There will be international challengers to the twin juggernauts. DreamWorks Animation's The Rise of the Guardians could make an impact in Russia and Ukraine, as well as the Netherlands, when it opens there this weekend. Cloud Atlas, which bowed strongly in Russia and opened at No. 2 with around $3 million in Germany last weekend, rolls out in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece and Poland in this frame, battling for a strong third spot behind Skyfall and Twilight.

Ang Lee’s 3-D adventure Life of Pi has sensibly avoided the Twilight onslaught, with only a handful of international bows, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. The bulk will come mid- to late December, after Twilight has sucked all it can out of the international box office.