As US Movie Theaters Reopen, Overseas Shutdowns Could Stall Box Office Recovery

Movie theaters in the U.S. may be on the road to recovery, but the still-widespread cinema closures in South America and Europe are creating headaches for Hollywood studios as they try to figure out how to release films that rely heavily on overseas box office. The state of the box office changes wildly depending on the region. China’s box office has fully recovered, as seen with the success of the Lunar New Year period and the $70 million opening for “Godzilla vs. Kong” there last weekend. Other markets in the Asia-Pacific region are showing significant progress as well, as “GvK” outperformed the entire Australian run of 2019’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” with a $6.3 million opening and earned $2.4 million in a steadily rebuilding Korean market. But then there’s Europe, where rapid spread of infectious COVID-19 variants and struggles with vaccination distribution have forced major markets like France, Italy and Scandinavia to close theaters. And in Latin America, “Godzilla vs. Kong” earned a higher opening than “King of the Monsters” in Mexico with $6.3 million; but several other major countries are still closed, particularly Brazil, which has become the new nexus of the pandemic as the virus has spread...

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