Coming Soon — To A Theater Nowhere Near You

ILM/Universal Pictures
A scene from Battleship, which opens this weekend in the U.S. Thanks to earlier releases abroad, the film has already grossed $215 million worldwide.

（文本為音頻大致內(nèi)容，可能與音頻并非完全一致，歡迎大家貢獻聽寫稿^^）

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:?From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:?And I'm Robert Siegel. The movie "Battleship," based on the board game, opens today in the U.S. It is familiar summer fare - it has firepower on a military scale, it has ear-punishing pyrotechnics, it has aliens and it even has Liam Neeson. But Bob Mondello says in one respect, "Battleship" is an outlier.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "BATTLESHIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) Weapons tight. I want everything loaded.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: "Battleship" may not be any good, but it is undeniably ours - American from the water up, a Universal Studios picture about an alien invasion crammed with special effects from Industrial Light and Magic and set largely on American warships.

Still, while this sci-fi epic is definitely homegrown, American audiences are the last ones on Earth who are getting to see it. "Battleship" first hoisted anchor six weeks ago in Japan. It cruised to Europe a week later then steamed into Russia and Pakistan and has since docked in every movie port of call on the planet except the U.S., Canada and Paraguay.

That release plan would have been unthinkable a decade or so ago, when it was a given that a Hollywood film opened first in the U.S., but American box office has remained basically stable for the last decade while overseas box office has skyrocketed. And with most blockbusters now earning twice as much overseas as they do in this country, it makes sense to take advantage of scheduling quirks elsewhere.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE AVENGERS")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) Guys, I'm bringing the party to you.

MONDELLO: "The Avengers," for instance, opened here on May 4th, but it opened a week earlier in 39 other countries because May 1st is a national holiday in most of the world, Labor Day. May Day crowds everywhere from France to Brazil to Hong Kong helped the avenging superheroes earn almost $200 million for their labors before they nailed down the biggest opening weekend in American history.

And while it took "Battleship" six weeks rather than one, it's done much the same thing. This isn't a magic bullet, though: Sometimes it's good for a film to open here and get an international buzz going before it heads overseas.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE HUNGER GAMES")

ELIZABETH BANKS: (As Effie Trinket) The time has come to select one courageous young man and woman for the honor of representing District 12 in the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

MONDELLO: Industry observers say that "The Hunger Games," which was a massive hit with all age groups in this country, might have benefited internationally had it waited a week or two to open elsewhere. That way, the big American opening would have raised the film's profile with older audiences overseas, and it might have played to more than just teenagers initially.

The reverse can also happen. The animated kid-flick "Rio," for example, is thought to have benefitted here from a sort of international tryout tour.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "RIO")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) The only other blue macaw is in Rio de Janeiro.

UNIDENTIED WOMAN: (As character) Brazil?

MONDELLO: School holidays in other countries led to "Rio" opening overseas a week before it opened in the U.S., and it was a smash, that weekend's biggest opening worldwide. The American press picked up on the film's success, and a kid-flick that had been struggling to make an impression opened a good deal better than expected.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "RIO")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) What are you doing?

WOMAN: (As character) Getting out of here.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) I can't...

WOMAN: (As character) What? You can't what?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) I can't fly.

MONDELLO: This sort of thing also happens with pictures aimed at older audiences. Later this summer, "The Amazing Spider-Man" will amaze Japan and New Zealand five days before it amazes the U.S. And if you've been waiting decades for Ridley Scott to make a prequel to "Alien" and just can't wait any longer, now you'll have an option: Hop on a plane to Europe.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "PROMETHEUS")

WOMAN: (As character) Whatever that probe is picking up, it's reading life form.

MONDELLO: Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" will open a week early in Europe to get ahead of soccer's Eurocup, which its producers think will be a huge distraction for their male target audience.

If, on the other hand, you're desperate to see the new Bourne movie, the first one without Matt Damon, stay right where you are.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE BOURNE LEGACY")

WOMAN: (As character) Welcome to the program.

MONDELLO: "The Bourne Legacy" may globe-trot all over the world, but it will open in the U.S. on August 3rd and won't reach most of the locations where it was shot until almost a month later. I'm Bob Mondello.

聲明：音視頻均來自互聯(lián)網(wǎng)鏈接，僅供學習使用。本網(wǎng)站自身不存儲、控制、修改被鏈接的內(nèi)容。"滬江英語"高度重視知識產(chǎn)權(quán)保護。當如發(fā)現(xiàn)本網(wǎng)站發(fā)布的信息包含有侵犯其著作權(quán)的鏈接內(nèi)容時，請聯(lián)系我們，我們將依法采取措施移除相關(guān)內(nèi)容或屏蔽相關(guān)鏈接。