For the fourth time this year, the 3D animated feature Up claimed the No. 1 spot on the overseas circuit, bagging $27.9 million from 4,500 screens in 24 territories during the weekend.

Solid first-place openings in Italy and four medium-size markets and a decisive, front-of-the-pack second weekend in the U.K. hoisted the Pixar/Disney movie's foreign total after almost five months of offshore release to $295.8 million and $588.5 million worldwide.

The foreign tally is $119.2 million less than the companies' total foreign box office for 2007's Ratatouille and $14.2 million behind last year's WALL-E. Those titles had similarly lengthy, measured international release patterns, and Disney is keen to see that Up's final take exceeds both.

The studio expects Up to overtake WALL-E's foreign total by week's end. Disney is banking on continued strong business in holdover markets and a run in animation-friendly Japan beginning June 5 to push Up's foreign tally beyond that of Ratatouille.

Finishing second during the frame was G-Force, another Disney title, which bagged $12.5 million from 3,255 screens in 44 markets for a total of $127.9 million. The animation title from producer Jerry Bruckheimer opened at No. 2 in France with $2.5 million from 316 situations and drew $4.2 million from 521 screens in its Germany bow.

Thanks to a muscular debut in Spain, Sony's romantic comedy The Ugly Truth finished third overall with $8.8 million drawn from 2,305 screens in 63 territories for a foreign total of $94.1 million.

The fourth- and fifth-ranked titles for the weekend were released by Universal, which said it crossed the $1 billion overseas box-office mark for 2009 on Saturday; the studio's year-to-date tally stands at $1.005 billion.

Universal's comedy Couples Retreat grossed $6.8 million from 926 screens in five territories for an early international gross of $10.8 million. The Weinstein Co./Universal's Inglourious Basterds, a World War II drama from Quentin Tarantino, drew $6.4 million from 2,800 sites in 52 territories, pushing its international total to $166 million and worldwide take to $285 million.

The sci-fi drama District 9 pushed its overseas gross to $77.2 million from all territories, including those handled by Sony, thanks to $5.9 million weekend take.

Dominating the French market for the past three frames is Le petit Nicolas, a Wild Bunch Distribution release of a live-action film based on a popular French children's book. The film's No. 1 weekend tally was $4.8 million from 590 screens for a market total of $23.9 million.

Another solo-market sensation was Agora, 20th Century Fox's pickup in Spain. The second weekend of director Alejandro Amenabar's $70 million costume drama co-starring Rachel Weisz and Max Minghella produced $4.4 million from 472 locations for a $16.3 million market gross.

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