It's official - TF2 was biggest grossing US Movie for 2009.
Since Harry Potter isn't as big in America as other countries, it didn't even come close to the Transformers takings.
In North America (US and Canada), Transformers took in US$400million, while HP came in second at US$300million, helping to push their 2009 total to over US$10billion. Close third was UP, and just behind that was New Moon (still in release) and The Hangover, rounding out the top five.
TF2 now sits at number 9 on the US All Time Grossing list, and no other 2009 movie made it into the top-30 (HP was at 31).
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B901X20091210
Looks like one factor that has helped boost total takings was a 30% increase in ticket prices in the last 2 years there (we've had a significant jump in prices recently as well), which is well above inflation (close to zero over there during that time).
As for us in Australia, I could only find data up to the end of September, but looks like Harry Potter came in first at US$35million, with Transformers a close second at US$33.5million.
As expected, globally the top spot went to Harry Potter, at US$929million. This was because, like their earlier movies, HP grossed twice as much in non-US countries as it did in Nth America, while TFs only grossed an equal amount (which is why it was number 1 in America, but not globally). Same thing happened for the number two spot - with Ice Age 3 coming in at US$888million, thanks to almost US$700million coming from non-US markets (helping it leapfrog over TFs globally). Our Transformers movie came in third at US$835million, which currently puts it at number 20 in the All Time Worldwide Gross listing.
Fourth was Avatar, at US$745million, and fifth was 2012, at US$735million - both of which are still in release at the moment. And both are like Harry Potter, in that they are doing twice as well in non-US markets.
Source - Boxofficemojo website.
So why are four of the top five movies globally, grossing twice as much outside of America as within America? Could it be the heavy US Military presence in the Transformers Movie once again reduced its popularity in the non-US markets? If that is the reason, could we have seen TF2 pass US$1billion (based on the global figure being 3 times US gross, like the other four movies in the top five) if there was no Military Theme involved?
Maybe something Paramount and Hasbro bean-counters could think about with TF3. US$800million might seem like a lot, but if there was potential for an additional US$400million, find me one corporate fatcat who wouldn't be asking for alternative ideas...
