Universal’s Jason Bourne had its Beijing premiere on August 16 with stars Matt Damon and Alicia Vikander on the red carpet. Today, the movie opened in the Middle Kingdom to an estimated $12.3 million. That makes it by far the biggest bow in the franchise’s history and puts it on track to best the lifetime total of The Bourne Legacy in the territory. That previous film was the series’ highest grosser in China at a $34.2M total and started its Middle Kingdom outing with $12.7M over four days.

Current worldwide box office on director Paul Greengrass’ Jason Bourne reteam with Damon is $284.2M, outstripping the $276M of The Bourne Legacy. The international portion is $151.3M. It still has 15 markets to come, including Mexico this weekend.

When it first came on the international scene, Jason Bourne logged the biggest international opening day for the franchise and cracked the best offshore weekend launch ever in the series.

Eyes have been on JB becoming the overall biggest in the franchise abroad. Each of the previous pics starring Damon drew higher numbers domestically versus international. The Bourne Legacy, which went a Damon-less route in 2012, was the only one in the series to have made more overseas.

Universal’s return to the amnesiac assassin is the fifth film in the franchise that’s based on characters created by Robert Ludlum and has grossed over $1B worldwide.

Damon, who had a mega-international hit with last year’s The Martian, engaged in worldwide promotion for the new movie, visiting Australia, Korea, the UK, France, Spain and Germany. Premieres for the film were held in Sydney, Seoul, London and Paris in addition to China. That could be the tipping point.