Mad About the Boy’ Box Office $75 Million Milestone

“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” is nearing a sweet box office benchmark with the fourth installment in the love-struck film franchise about to surpass $75 million overseas.

“Bridget Jones 4,” starring Renée Zellweger as the titular heroine, added a solid $19.2 million over the weekend from 73 international markets for a tally above $71 million. Those ticket sales are higher than the three prior “Bridget Jones” films as well as 2022’s Julia Roberts and George Clooney-led “Ticket to Paradise” at the same point in their theatrical cycles, according to distributor Universal Pictures. The $50 million-budgeted film debuted on Peacock in the United States.

For context, 2001’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary” earned $262 million internationally while its sequels, 2004’s “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” and 2016’s “Bridget Jones’s Baby” generated $224 million and $187 million overseas, respectively. Meanwhile, “Ticket to Paradise” earned $100 million overseas. With all of these romantic-comedies, foreign ticket sales accounted for at least 60% and as much as 89% of overall revenues.

Elsewhere at the international box office, “Captain America: Brave New World” ranked No. 1 again with $35.3 million from 52 territories. The superhero sequel, starring Anthony Mackie as the star-spangled Avenger, has grossed $148.2 million overseas and $289.4 million to date.

Without anything in the way of competition, this “Captain America” adventure is Hollywood’s highest grossing release of the year. But box office prognosticators are waiting to see whether the $180 million-budgeted comic book tentpole will have more endurance than 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which had a similar start and second weekend slump to “Brave New World.” The third “Ant Man” eventually tapped out with $476 million and failed to break even in its theatrical run. Disney’s Marvel Cinematic…