Star Wars: The Force Awakens made its second pass over the Earth’s movie theatres and landed a direct hit in every country where it touched down. U.S. sales came to a monumental $153.5 million, pushing J.J. Abrams’s box office monster to $546 million, the highest two-week cumulative at the domestic box office in history. After stealing Jurassic World’s crown for the biggest U.S. opening of all time last weekend, it relegated the prehistoric giant to second place for return showings as well. At this point Star Wars: The Force Awakens will almost certainly pass Avatar’s $760.5 million domestic benchmark, and may even become the first film to earn $1 billion in the U.S. and Canada alone.

Speaking of billions, Force carried its uncontainable success overseas and after an enormous $133 million weekend it reached a global cumulative of $1.09 billion in just 11 days. That’s faster again than Jurassic World, which took 13 days to reach the milestone. Force also accomplished the feat without a single day of screen time in China, where Jurassic World had already earned $100 million by the end of its second week. While the Star Wars franchise is relatively unknown in the Middle Kingdom, the sheer amount of global success it is reaping will make it a must-see for audiences in that country. To put aside any doubts, Disney has launched a media blitz of a scale that hasn’t been seen in the region since Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes came pouring over The Great Wall in the 13^th century. We’ll have to wait until January 9 to see if it pays off, though given the shape of the deck the odds are stacked heavily in Disney’s favor.

For now Mickey and his pals will be having a great time counting their stacks of Euros, Yen, Pesos, Reais and other currencies from around the world. It’s made $47.8 million in France, $19.9 million in Spain, and $18.2 million in Italy. Germany is at $54.3 million, and at this rate Force is set to move ahead of Avatar there. In the UK, its biggest foreign market so far, Star Wars has made a massive $97 million. In Australia, it’s made $35.7 million and in just two weeks sits behind The Avengers as Disney’s biggest Down Under release of all time. Japan’s gross sits at $31.3 million, and Korea is at $18.8 million. It did well in Latin America as well, reaching cumes of $20.2 million and $15.9 million in Mexico and Brazil.

Although one film is clearly grabbing the lion’s share of the headlines here, there were several key new releases at the U.S. box office this past week. The biggest new movie over the Christmas weekend was Mark Wahlberg and Will Farrell ‘s comedy Daddy’s Home, which managed to beat expectations and gross $38.8 million in its opening run. Next among new releases was David O. Russell’s Joy starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper. After that came Will Smith’s football drama Concussion, at $11 million, followed closely by the remake of Point Break at $10.2 million. Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight kicked off its domestic run with $4.5 million from just 100 theatres for a very impressive $45K average in a not particularly limited release. Each of these 100 theatres had been specially retrofitted by The Weinstein Company to play the film in its original 70mm format. The Revenant, directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as explorer Hugh Glass fighting for survival in the winter of 1823 in the Great Plains, opened with a stratospheric $117.5K average from four New York and Los Angeles theatres.

Next weekend, get ready to see how these two titles fare in their nationwide expansions. And hold on tight because The Force Awakens hasn’t shown any signs of coming out of hyperdrive.

Lorenzo Soria