Thoughts on the Box Office: XXX: The Return of Xander Cage

The performance of XXX: The Return of Xander Cage at the box office is a familiar story now--a film not very warmly received in the U.S. did much better in China, enough to turn a potential flop into what looks like a solid earner.

In China the movie made more in its first weekend than it made in its whole American run (over $60 million, versus its $45 million total stateside take), and went on to rake in a staggering $164 million. That nearly matched its earnings just about everywhere else, bringing the total gross up to $346 million, which means the film has now made roughly four times its stated production budget, at which point it seems safe to assume a profit is being turned.

So I guess I was right about the series' U.S. gross, more or less (that it would not come close to the heights of the original), wrong about how well it would play overseas and especially in China, where Diesel seems especially popular, benefiting perhaps more from the fortunes of the Fast and Furious franchise there than in other places, which has performed exceptionally well there. (Furious 7's China gross exceeded its U.S. earnings--$390 million to the $353 million it took in the U.S.--while so far Fate of the Furious is doing better, having pulled in $320 million to date.)

I guess, too, that while the talk of Paramount's interest in a fourth XXX film before the movie's release seemed overly bullish to me, the sequel now seems very likely to happen, and sooner rather than later.