“Gladiator II” entered the international box office arena with $87 million from 63 markets, a strong start for the quarter-century-in-the-making sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Best Picture winner, “Gladiator.”

This marks the biggest international R-rated opening weekend for Paramount Pictures, as well as the best foreign debut for Scott, whose top-grossing films include “The Martian” ($630 million worldwide), “Gladiator” ($465 million worldwide) and “Prometheus” . ” ($403 million).

“Gladiator II” also scored at Imax with $7 million from 453 screens, placing it among the company’s top three international debuts of the year.

The sequel had the strongest launch in the United Kingdom with $11.4 million from 722 locations, followed by France with $10.3 million from 729 locations, Spain with $5.6 million from 411 locations, Australia with $5 million from 353 locations and Mexico with $4.7 million from 922 locations. . The sword-and-sandal epic, starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington, lands in North America and Canada on November 22, where it will compete for screens with Universal’s big-budget musical adaptation of ‘Wicked ‘.

The sequel to “Gladiator” has a budget of over $250 million, so it needs to resonate at the global box office to be considered a success. Reviews are mixed with an average of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The story begins twenty years after the original when Lucius (Mescal), the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus, enters the Colosseum and attempts to return the glory of Rome to its people. Variety Owen Gleiberman called the film a “serviceable but far from great sequel.” Of course, “Gladiator II” has a lot to live up to as a follow-up to a Best Picture Oscar winner that was one of the highest-grossing films of 2000.

“Gladiator II” arrived well before Dwayne Johnson’s Christmas-themed “Red One,” which grossed $14.7 million at the international box office in its second weekend from 75 markets. The film, which is being released by Amazon MGM in North America and Warner Bros. in the rest of the world, has grossed $34 million domestically and $84.1 million worldwide to date. “Red One,” starring The Rock as Santa’s head of security, cost $250 million to produce and about $100 million to promote to a global audience, so it’s banking on Christmas fun over Thanksgiving and beyond justify that price tag.

Also this weekend, Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” and Sony’s “Venom: The Last Dance” each achieved box office milestones. The first, an animated adventure about a lone robot who forms a community in the wilderness, surpassed $300 million with ticket sales of $308 million worldwide, including $170 million from overseas markets. The latter, a threequel in the Tom Hardy-led comic book series, surpassed $400 million with grosses of $436.1 million worldwide, including $308.5 million internationally.