Thanks to hefty opening grosses registered on the weekend in the U.K. and France, Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" appears to have muscled its way to the No. 1 spot on the foreign theatrical circuit.
However, with $21.5 million generated from 6,550 screens in 59 markets, Warner Bros.' "Inception" is still in the running for the top spot as of Sunday. The Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle has claimed first place in the three prior weekends.
With only a smattering of the some 20 offshore markets reporting, "Expendables" -- the Milennium Films /Nu Image Films super-octane action vehicle costarring Stallone, Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke -- has compiled a weekend gross of at least $14.5 million.
Whereas "Inception" has been fully accounted for (it's international cume stands at $357.7 million), returns for "Expendables" are by no means all in due to a complicated and not-especially-timely reporting process involving myriad regional film distributors.
The action title on the weekend opened No. 1 in the U.K., commanding an estimated $5.7 million from 456 screens. In France, the first-place gross was an estimated $5 million from an unspecified number of locations. In Korea, "Expendables" opened in the No. 5 spot with an estimated $1.5 million elicited from 265 screens.
In Australia, "Expendables" lured an estimated $1.6 million from 187 sites in its second market round. Universal reports that in Spain, the film drew a second-weekend gross of $700,000 from 341 dates for a 10-day market cume of $3.7 million.
Still to be heard from are China and Singapore among the debut markets and Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, Denmark, Finland and Romania, among the holdovers.