in Portugal

Monsters University has quietly become one of Pixar's highest-grossing movies ever. The animated prequel added $19.6 million overseas this weekend, most of which came from a $13 million start in China and a $4.6 million debut in Italy. To date, it has earned $424.8 million overseas, which ranks fourth all-time for the animation studio. Worldwide, it has grossed $686.6 million—fourth all-time for Pixar—and it will pass $700 million by next weekend.

So it made 13M in China, 4.6M in Italy, 1.9M in Japan (according to Corpse)...and 0.1M in the rest of the countries.
Something must be wrong. It made more than that in Finland alone.

Good opening for MU. China is really busy releasing foreign movies last couple of weeks.

Not at all correct.

They've just started to release them since Aug 20, and do you know why? because the kids are going back to school.

As you say, in the "last couple of weeks", China has only released 1 foreign movie; Pacific Rim. Hence why it did so well. It was the only foreign movie released at a time when kids were out of school.

Weren't Fast & Furious 6 and White House Down released not too long ago as well? The former did really well actually.

Whoo-hoo

Though where are those articles getting the $970m WW figure for its initial release? Are they confusing total lifetime gross prior to this weekend?

They were released well in July.

The last couple of weeks were left for Pacific Rim to dominate. Seriously man, this is how China works. They release all of the local movies when it's best for them to make money, and then most of the foreign movies when everyone is busy (non-holiday times), and even then, they release about 4 big movies in a space of about 2 weeks meaning that none of them really make any big bucks.

Rio (the first one from 2011) is getting a Japan release this October, though from what I understand it'll be a limited engagement. Idk why. Regardless of how wide it goes, it'll be the first Blue Sky animated film to be released since 2009's Ice Age 3.

It's actually from 2011.

Yeah, I fixed it.

I said I don't know why they'd even bother now, but perhaps it's to test the waters again to see how future Blue Sky films may perform.

What about Ice Age 4 and Epic?

They weren't (haven't) been released, though it might be too early to know with certainty on Epic. It was only released 3 months ago.

Here is the list of animated films NOT released since 2009:

Planet 51
Megamind
Gnomeo and Juliet
Rio (though it was just announced for a limited October release)
Ice Age 4
Rise of the Guardians
The Croods
Epic
Turbo

And pretty much all the smaller-tier films like Alpha and Omega and Mars Needs Moms never get released.

I don't get The Croods. DreamWorks films have been more on the rise in Japan recently, no?

Sort of, and I do wish someone would give The Croods a shot, but the only recent one that's performed beyond expectations was Madagascar 3, which may have benefited greatly from Brave bombing. There wasn't much for kids to see during Summer vacation last year. What's hurt Dreamworks the most I think is having their major franchise all see severe drops with every installment:

Ice Age 3 dropped 85% (killed any chance of Ice Age 4 being released)
Kung Fu Panda 2 dropped 50% (doesn't look good for Kung Fu Panda 3)
Shrek 4 dropped 35% (which followed a 40% drop-off for Shrek 3)

And Puss in Boots actually saw a 17% over Shrek 4. That's solid, but it still barely broke the 1 billion mark. Every other Dreamworks feature not listed (2008-) bombed. However, the few that saw How to Train Your Dragon loved it. It has some very high ratings on various movie sites.

There's just not much of a market for them with so many local animated films being released every month, and Disney/Pixar are too strong a brand name and generally release higher quality animation for other animated studios like DW, Sony, Blue Sky to compete. And you have to understand that imported-animation largely targets children, and children are a very small demographic in Japan.

I don't understand, though. I mean adults love How to Train Your Dragon and most love Shrek too...so why are Japanese audiences so partial towards Pixar and, seemingly, stuff like Despicable Me, but decide to ignore DreamWorks' films?

I think it's a variety of reasons.

#1. Early Bird - Pixar was releasing the first full-length CG animated titles. At the time, this style was new and something the Japanese didn't really see. This helped establish Pixar as the premier CG studio before it became over-saturated in the West. And Japan still don't have it (or rather, don't choose to utilize it), choosing traditional animation for their tv shows and films, and abandoned the 3D boom very early.
#2. Quality - Up until recently, Pixar's quality was eons ahead of Dreamworks. This helped attract a broader audience early on (this also ties into reason #1), an audience that has largely stuck with them over the year. Excluding Finding Nemo, Monsters, and the Toy Story brands (aka the Holy Trinity that set them up as the top CG studio), all of their other films have very similar box-office numbers indicating their fanbase.
#3. Pop Culture - Dreamworks often incorporated pop. culture into their earlier films, and Japanese audiences didn't understand it. They've scaled back on this though, and the films without it tend to perform better.
#4. Age - Adults watch Japanese animated tv shows and films. There are a few shows like Doraemon or Chibi Maruko-chan that children make up the primary audience, but for most everything else, the audience is overwhelmingly adults (30, 40, 50+ year olds).

And Despicable Me wasn't really huge hit or anything. It also barely earned over 1 billion, which is considered impressive for any imported-animated film not from Disney/Pixar now. But it's still very much a low number.

Even though Now You See Me is widely considered one of this summer's big surprises, I still feel that its worldwide run is underappreciated. It has become a MAJOR hit overseas. Currently a $203.3 million and counting, Japan still ahead. It'll get close to $350 million worldwide - without 3D, IMAX or giant robots. It's an enormous success.

Also, The Conjuring is an even bigger phenomenon overseas than domestically. Horror movies often do well doemstically, but they rarely break out in a major fashion overseas. The Conjuring is at $135,200,000 overseas and looking to finish with at least $150 million. It'll aproach $300 million worldwide on a $20 million budget!!

The Heat pretty much bombed overseas. As did Identity Thief and We're the Millers. All of these big US comedies just can't find traction outside of the comfortable US. I'm sure We're the Millers has more markets to open in, though, and it does look appealing to non-US, whereas the other two just look totally American.

Um, you are absolutely wrong on We're the Millers. For an US-comedy it is doing really really well overseas and going to hit $100 million.

Before THE HOBBIT 2 mixes everything up, here's another look at the Top Ten in 40 different countries: http://www.insidekino.de/BO/2013DEZ.htm

Despicable Me 2 and Iron Man 3 rule.

I saw 47 Ronin opened very poorly in Japan. Not a good sign for its box office here or OS.

The world is doomed

Not really. Big CGI US movies don't do too well in Japan. So, if that's anything to go by, it will do very well in the US.

Personally, I think it's doomed everywhere.

It seems to me that the Japanese generally hate American movies that they see as ripping off their own movies, and they don't seem to much care for American films that incorporate "Japanese" elements in a blatant attempt to appeal to them.

The Hunger Games tanked because audiences rejected it, perceiving it to be plagiarizing Battle Royale. Pacific Rim flopped because audiences rejected it, perceiving it to be plagiarizing Evangelion. The Wolverine probably floundered for similar reasons.

The American Godzilla did well (at least, better than any of the Japanese ones that came after), but the hardcore fans absolutely hated it. And the one weird exception is The Last Samurai, which tanked in the States but made a ton in Japan - maybe they thought it was sufficiently "authentically Japanese"...

And I agree that 47 Ronin is going to faceplant nearly everywhere. It doesn't just look bad, it looks bland...