Foreign Horse Races in May

Iron Man Deux knocks them dead in foreign venues.

Marvel Studios' "Iron Man 2," this year's opening summer tentpole, lit up the foreign theatrical circuit with a five-day overseas launch bagging $100.2 million from 6,764 sites in 53 markets for a sparkling per-screen average of $14,814.

Distributor Paramount Pictures International says the sequel to 2008's Marvel original starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow finished No. 1 in 52 of the opening territories, beating "Iron Man's" opening overall numbers by 26% in local currencies ...

And another Paramount release ran over the $200 milion trip-wire.

Fourth was DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon," generating $6.7 million from 5,687 situations in 60 markets. Distributor Paramount says the overseas gross total has surpassed $200 million ($203 million). ...

Since Dragon will likely accumulate $200 million in the U.S. and Canada in the next few days, (it's at $192.4 million now) I think we can judge the feature a success, can we not?

Meanwhile, Tim Burton's reworking of the Lewis Carroll story (Alice in Big Bucks Land) closes in on a billion worldwide dollars. Tim has traveled a looong way from the first-floor of the Disney Animation Building ...