Shocking absolutely no one, Gerard Butler’s biggest live-action movie with a bullet is 300. The 2007 motion picture that finally catapulted the Dracula 2000 and Reign of Fire actor to leading man status, 300 was a pop culture phenomenon that inevitably bolstered Butler’s Hollywood presence significantly. Its sizeable $454.1 million global haul has also cast a long shadow over his other star vehicles. After all, no other live-action movie anchored by Butler has exceeded $250 million worldwide. People love seeing him bellow “this is Sparta!” but they’re a little iffier on his other motion pictures.
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As for what production holds the distinction of being Butler’s biggest non-300 live-action movie worldwide, it’d be easy to assume it’s one of the Olympus Has Fallen titles. In actuality, though, it’s a feature that’s also technically one of the biggest box office flops of 2017. The world of box office data is funny like that. Law Abiding Citizen and The Ugly Truth fans will need to stand down today. Butler’s biggest non-300 star vehicle ever worldwide is a little movie called Geostorm.
How Much Did Geostorm Make Worldwide?
For those not in the know, Geostorm is a 2017 Dean Devlin directorial effort set on an alternate version of Earth where human beings can control the weather with fancy satellites. When those machines are hijacked, cataclysmic weather events begin descending on various parts of the planet. Protagonist Jake Lawson (Butler) is up in space when all these lightning storms and tornados begin causing chaos on the planet below. Earth needs Lawson’s help to survive while his younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess) tries to stave off a plot involving a weather-based presidential assassination at the DNC.
Needless to say, Geostorm is not the kind of movie that anyone will be plucking out of the Criterion Closet anytime soon. In the years since its release, it hasn’t even garnered an ironic midnight movie fandom like other disaster movie boondoggles like The Core or 2012. That’s partially why this one flopped at the box office, along with its hefty $130-million budget. However, the title still grossed $221.6 million worldwide. That was nowhere near enough to reach profitability, but it did mean Geostorm exceeded The Ugly Truth’s $205.29 million worldwide gross to become Butler’s biggest non-300 feature globally.
Such a hefty sum largely came through international moviegoers, who contributed a whopping $187.09 million to its worldwide cume (compared to a paltry $33.7 million domestic haul). International audiences have always gravitated towards the global spectacle of disaster movies, as seen with something like 2012 making just over $603 million internationally back in 2009. Compare those numbers to the international numbers generated by more grounded Butler star vehicles like Angel Has Fallen ($64.31 million) and Law Abiding Citizen ($57.8 million).
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What Other Box Office Advantages Did Geostorm Wield?
Geostorm’s other big advantage compared to other Gerard Butler movies was that it hailed from a major studio. Warner Bros. Pictures distributed this feature (which was largely financed by Skydance Productions) in most parts of the world. That meant Geostorm had the benefit of polished marketing and distribution services from one of the biggest studios in the world. For comparison’s sake, other Butler films like Law Abiding Citizen and Gamer were independently financed productions that had less unified distribution plans.
Above all else, though, Geostorm was simply a more accessible motion picture for global audiences than other Butler movies. Being a PG-13 feature relying heavily on CG-fueled spectacle, Geostorm could captivate audiences in any country. Something like Plane, meanwhile, might alienate certain moviegoers with a sensitive temperament towards violence. That broad appeal did inform the deeply generic qualities of Geostorm that kept it from connecting to people. However, sanding off the edges of Butler’s typical violence allowed it to excel in territories like China (where it made $65.6 million).
Geostorm‘s also an interesting title in Butler’s filmography in that it’s a rare feature that needed to get far, far, far past $200 million to be profitable. A smaller-scale romantic comedy like The Ugly Truth, for instance, didn’t require a $375+-million haul Geostorm needed to be in the financial clear. Ditto other modestly budgeted Butler star vehicles like Law Abiding Citizen. That’s the other critical factor informing why Geostorm reigns so high above all other non-300 Butler films: it’s a costlier, higher-profile enterprise than almost anything else he’s headlined. That reality is why Geostorm outgrossed all but one of Butler’s other major movies as well as why it still qualifies as a significant box office bomb.
