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Why International Markets Got 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' First

By Alexander Joenks | Box Office Round-Ups | April 28, 2015 |

By Alexander Joenks | Box Office Round-Ups | April 28, 2015 |


The Avengers: Age of Ultron debuted internationally over this last weekend. That doesn’t mean it debuted everywhere but America, but if it debuted anywhere but the land of the home of the free of the brave than that’s practically fascist communism in and of itself. Patton did not die at Gettysburg driving back the Russian hordes to put up with this shit.

Gattaca!

To be fair, there were some reasons that specific countries deserved to get Avengers 2: The Avenging before the old US of A.

Brazil: $13.1 million.
Do you remember the World Cup last summer? No? Me neither. My entire experience with soccer has been that I played it one year in elementary school and was so bored in a game once that I literally sat down in the middle of the field, and was making my own fun with a couple rocks and a piece of wood I found. And then a girl ran up and kicked me in the shin so hard that I felt it through the shin guard and started crying.

Where was I? Oh, Brazil. They got beat by the Germans so bad on their home field in the year they were supposed to win it all that the country’s entire economy collapsed and it became a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with green shirts and capoeira. Not really. But they really needed this movie as soon as they could.

Russia: $16.2 million.
True story: James Spader is actually Vladimir Putin. He waived half his fee for his voice work in return for getting the movie a week early.

Germany: $9.3 million.
It’s been six months since Oktoberfest, and that makes this the traditional most depressed time in Germany’s history every year. This year they threatened to let the entire Eurozone collapse if they didn’t get this movie early, and Hollywood decided to throw those sour Krauts a bone.

South Korea: $28.2 million.
They’ve got the best Internet in the world, rolling out super bandwidth connections to the smallest little villages. The thing is, movies these days are all digital anyway, no flying reels across the ocean. The reality is that their theaters started downloading the movie the same time as American theaters, it’s just the download completed a week early. Screw rights and efficiency, router melting download speeds is the true gift of state-backed corporatism to the world.

Australia:: $13.1 million
To be fair, because they are both below the equator, on the other side of the international date line, and surrounded by coral reefs, it is already May 10th in Australia, so technically they’re getting it after us. If you didn’t follow that, don’t worry, it has to do with magnets and the theory of relativity.


But the real news is that the film hasn’t gotten to China yet, because there is still justice in this world, justice that says communist dictatorships don’t get our superhero movies before us. Corrupt journalist murdering pseudo-authoritarian states, yes, but come on, at least they pretend to hold elections.

Steven Lloyd Wilson is a hopeless romantic and the last scion of Norse warriors and the forbidden elder gods. His novel, ramblings, and assorted fictions coalesce at www.burningviolin.com. You can email him here.