‘Frozen 2’ Defrosts Overseas Box Office With $223 Million

By Rebecca Rubin

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In a box office debut fit for royals, Disney’s “Frozen 2” ignited the international box office with $223 million and $350 million globally.

“” opened at No. 1 in 37 foreign markets, passing “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” ($152 million) to secure the biggest international launch ever for an animated movie. China led the way with a strong $53 million, while Korea ($31.5 million), Japan ($18.2 million), the United Kingdom ($17.8 million) and Germany ($14.9 million) all posted promising opening weekends.

The original “Frozen” is still the highest-grossing animated movie in history with $1.3 billion globally, though the follow-up is off to a promising start after landing the biggest global debut ever for an animated film. The sequel takes Arendelle royalty Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell), along with Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and Olaf (Josh Gad), beyond their kingdom to uncover the mystery behind Elsa’s mystical powers. Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck returned to direct, while original songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez wrote all new tunes.

While “Frozen 2” towered over the international box office competition, holdover from -Fox’s “Ford v Ferrari” revved up $14.7 million from 43 foreign markets. Those receipts take the acclaimed racing drama past $100 million worldwide, including $45.8 million overseas. Top-earning territories include Russia with $6.8 million, the U.K. wit $5.3 million, France with $4.7 million and Australia with $3.7 million.

Elsewhere, Warner Bros.’ “Joker” collected another $7.6 million, taking its international haul to a mighty $708.8 million. Joaquin Phoenix’s gritty comic-book origin story recently became the first R-rated movie ever to cross $1 billion worldwide. It currently stands at a massive $1.036 billion.