‘Men in Black 3’ gets lots of green

Though�Men in Black 3�struggled to make it to the big screen, the third installment in the sci-fi comedy franchise has had no trouble at the box office.

This past weekend, the movie starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin surged past the $500-million milestone at the worldwide box office. Distributor Sony Pictures said the movie has grossed approximately $391.6 million from 79 foreign countries, performing best in Japan and Russia. Combined with the film’s estimated domestic tally of $152.7 million, the movie has now collected about $544.3 million globally.

That’s good news for the Culver City studio and Hemisphere Media Capital, which together spent nearly $250 million to produce the picture — making it one of the most expensive releases of 2012. The production of “MIB3� was marked by problems, mainly a serious script rewrite that prompted shooting to be delayed for three months.

Time will soon tell whether “MIB3� can catch up with its predecessors. “Men in Black,� released in 1997, grossed $589 million globally; adjusting for inflation, that’s equivalent to $843 million in today’s dollars. “Men in Black 2,� which was not as well received as the original, made $441.8 million in 2002; in today’s dollars, that would be about $564 million.