Box Office: Star Wars Crosses $1 Billion Globally at Record Pace
Star Wars: The Force Awakens showed few signs of flagging over Christmas weekend, barreling past the $1 billion mark globally at a faster clip than any film in history.
Its becoming old hat to recount the various ways that the seventh film in the science-fiction fantasy is vaporizing records, but, familiar or not, The Force Awakens once again ground down high-water marks over the holidays, racking up $153.5 million domestically. That represents both the biggest Christmas holiday result and the best second weekend for a film in history. Domestically, The Force Awakens has grossed a mammoth $544.6 million. Worldwide that figure is nearly $1.1 billion. The Star Wars sequel crossed $1 billion in twelve days, something it took the previous record-holder, Jurassic World, thirteen days to accomplish.
The three-day holiday should also rank as biggest Christmas weekend overall in history beating the $269.8 million in 2009, which saw the launch of Sherlock Holmes and the second weekend of Avatar, the box office titan that The Force Awakens hopes to surpass as the highest-grossing film in history.
Paramount reunited The Other Guys stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg in the comedy Daddys Home with strong results. The look at a stepfathers attempts to outshine his wifes stud of a first husband, came in second with a strong $38.8 million from 3,271 theaters. That was far above projections which had the picture opening in the $20 million range. Daddys Home carries a $50 million budget.
Fox also scored with Joy, a rag-tag biopic about the creator of the Miracle Mop, that earned $17.5 million from 2,896 theaters. The $60 million film reunites the Silver Linings Playbook team of Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper with director David O. Russell. It is expected to be a leading Oscar contender.
But Point Break, a remake of the 1991 Kathryn Bigelow cult favorite, wiped out. The $105 million action flick eked out $10.2 million from 2,910 venues. The Chinese-American co-production will look abroad for salvation. It has earned a solid $40 million in China, where it opened on Dec. 3. Warner Bros., which has had a horrific year at the box office, can at least content itself with the fact that its only a gun for hire on this one. Alcon Entertainment and DMG Entertainment financed Point Break.
Sonys Will Smith NFL drama Concussion nabbed $11 million across 2,841 locations. L Star Capital and Village Roadshow co-financed Concussion, which has a $35 million budget.
In its second weekend of release, Universals Sisters barely dropped from its debut, picking up $13.9 million to drive the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler comedys North American haul to $37.2 million. Foxs Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip also showed some endurance, adding $12.7 million to its $39.4 million domestic gross.
Paramounts The Big Short expanded from eight theaters to 1,585 locations on Wednesday, picking up $14.5 million for the five day period. Its gross stands at just over $16 million and a further expansion is planned for Jan. 8, at which point the comedy about the financial collapse will be in roughly 2,500 theaters.
In limited release, the Weinstein Companys 70 MM road show version of The Hateful Eight racked up a sturdy $4.6 million from 100 locations for a $45,365 per-screen average.
Foxs The Revenant also did well in a handful of theaters. The blood-drenched revenge epic picked up $471,000 from four locations, for a per-screen average of $117,750. Thats the second best average of the year, behind only Steve Jobs with $130,381. But The Revenant will need to resonate with mainstream crowds if it hopes to recoup its $135 million budget something Steve Jobs failed to do. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the film as a wilderness guide abandoned by his colleagues after a savage bear attack.
More to come