Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's latest disaster film, "Skyscraper" finds home in Chinese box office with $47.7 million opening ticket performance.
According to reports, the new Universal movie did suffer a slight slump on its domestic outing with meager ticket sales of $11 million in North America.
This quickly changed when it finally debuted in the international cinemas. Just this weekend, the Rawson Marshall Thurber-helmed title raked $75 million and the figure is expected to further rack up as it holds appeal among audiences from Korea, India, and Russia.
Globally, "Skyscraper" has earned a total of $179.6 million, which is higher than what was initially expected.
A slate of Johnson's past films has seen greater ticket sales. "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" for example, grossed $1 billion worldwide while "Rampage," despite its slow start, gained eventual momentum to hit $326 million overseas sales.
The film, which was also co-produced by Legendary Pictures, features the acts of Johnson as a former FBI hostage crisis management expert, Will Sawyer. The disabled retiree now works as a security assessor of skyscrapers. His wife (Neve Campbell) and two children moved to Hong Kong for an assignment. For what is supposed to be just another run in the mill, his latest job got him entangled in a compromising situation - he gets framed as the one responsible when the world's tallest building catches on fire.
To make things worse for the one-legged amputee, his family is inside the same building. Aside from fighting the bad guys coming right at him, Will faces the odds of saving his family from the burning skyscraper.
"Skyscraper's" massive attraction in China was due in part on the fact that it features a lot of Asian actors like Byron Mann as a Hong Kong police inspector, Hannah Quinlivan, and 56-year-old Chinese thespian Tzi Ma, as fire chief officer.
Meanwhile, the movie's theatrical competitors like Universal's "Mama Mia! Here We Go Again" is looking well with it's $76.8 million starts internationally, but its home performance is now closing in on $1 billion domestic gross.
Disney's "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is also making rounds among moviegoers as it earned an impressive global ticket sales of $353.5 million just for its opening.
Another movie worth checking out is Denzel Washington's sequel to the 2014 action-thriller, "The Equalizer." Titled aptly as "The Equalizer 2," the film hits the chart with $38.3 million head start in worldwide ticket sales.
