• Box Office

World Box Office Dec 28-Jan 3, 2016

Many new things will happen in the coming year but for now we have one constant: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still dominating the domestic and international box office. J.J. Abrams’ stellar reboot of the biggest sci-fi series in history earned a record breaking $88.3 million in North America this weekend, the biggest third weekend of all time. Stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, and series veterans Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill led the picture to $34.5 million on New Year’s Day, sweeping aside the previous record of $25.3 million established by Avatar in 2009. Without accounting for inflation Force Awakens’ $740.3 million domestic total has beaten every Star Wars title to date save for A New Hope. Abrams’ film sits just days away from overtaking Avatar’s unadjusted record, and stands a very good chance of beating the $843.3 million in 2015 dollars that James Cameron’s megalith made in 2009. It also became the second biggest ever earner on IMAX screens, reaching $152 million in the company’s large format theatres in just 19 days. Avatar, which sits in first with $243.3 million, took 47 days to pass $150 million and had the help of a China release.

Internationally, Star Wars made $96.3 million and bumped its overseas total to $770.5 million. It’s now the 15th biggest offshore earner, moving quickly past number 10 . Its biggest foreign territory so far is the UK where it has earned $145 million, and will soon pass Skyfall’s all-time British box office record of $161 million. It made $81.4 million in Germany, $67.4 million in France, $27.4 million in Spain and $24.9 million in Italy. Japan is the film’s biggest Asian market so far with $52.9 million, followed by South Korea at $23.1 million. Mexico leads Latin America with $24.5 million, followed closely by Brazil at $21.2 million. In Australia, it is currently sitting at $50.7million, the second biggest movie in the country after Avatar. With a domestic and international cumulative of $1.5 billion, The Force Awakens is currently the third highest grossing movie of 2015 after Furious 7 ($1.5 billion) and Jurassic World ($1.67 billion.) Even without the upcoming China opening it would move past both of these titles by next week, but with the Middle Kingdom getting ready to feel the Force on January 9Star Wars will surely leave them both in the dust.

Back on the domestic chart another picture had a very satisfying return: Paramount and Red Granite’s Daddy’s Home, starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, earned $29 million in its second weekend and is quietly becoming a hit in its own right. Its domestic total is now up to $93.7 million and with another $21.9 million coming from overseas it has a cumulative of $115.6 million. Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight moved intothird after a midweek nationwide expansion, earning $16.2 million over the holiday weekend. It now sits at a domestic cume of $29.6 million. Sisters took fourth with $16.2 million.

Now in its second weekend in just four limited LA and New York theatres, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant earned $450K, for an outstanding $118,640 per theatre average. Fox will move the film into 2,700 theatres on January 8.

Next week we’ll follow the expansion of The Revenant and see how it does against The Hateful Eight, all the while trying to keep track of what records Star Wars breaks and how many countries’ GDP it is able to surpass. So far The Force Awakens has earned more than San Marino and the British Virgin Islands in 2015, and will most likely pass the Central African Republic and tens of other countries by the end of next week.

Lorenzo Soria