Weekend Estimates: Star Wars’ $153 million Christmas demolishes another set of records
December 27, 2015
The Star Wars juggernaut continues to roll through box office records all around the world this weekend. It will pass $1 billion globally today, Sunday, in just its 12th day in release—one day faster than Jurassic World. That blockbuster figure is largely thanks to an incredible $544 million after just ten days domestically, far ahead of Jurassic World’s $402 million at the same point in its run. The Force Awakens has now broken records for every milestone from $50 million to $500 million, with more to fall. The current record for fastest to $550 million is also Jurassic World, which reached the mark in 24 days. Star Wars will do it in eleven. After that, we will start looking at some serious all-time records.
If we exclude the $57 million in Thursday previews from last week’s total, Star Wars dropped from $190 million to $153.5 million in its second weekend, according to Disney’s Sunday estimate. That 19% decline compares to a drop of just 2% for Avatar in its second weekend. Not only did Avatar also come out the weekend before Christmas, but it is an exact analog, because it was the last time Christmas fell on a Friday. If we round the difference between the two movies up, and say that The Force Awakens will decline 20% more rapidly than Avatar, then we are looking at a total domestic box office of $950 million (and that’s ignoring Avatar’s re-release in the Summer of 2010). Even a relative collapse over the next few weeks will still leave The Force Awakens as the top-grossing film of all time in North America, without taking inflation into account. A single run of over $1 billion can’t be ruled out at this stage.
Internationally, the film’s chances of breaking all-time records still boil down to how well it performs in China. It is still “only” the 45th highest-grossing film internationally, and Avatar’s $2 billion international mark looks a long way off.
The real surprise package over the holiday weekend was Daddy’s Home. The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy has largely fallen flat with critics, but was perfectly timed to bring in families sick of turkey sandwiches, and will earn about $38.8 million this weekend, well ahead of expectations. That leaves Joy, which was expected to compete hard for second place, well back with a respectable $17.5 million weekend. Concussion will debut with around $11 million, and Point Break is well back with a very disappointing $10.22 million. Sisters also tapped in to the holiday zeitgeist and will have the best hold of a returning film. In fact, its box office will be essentially unchanged from its opening, at $13.9 million.
The two big new limited releases are both producing gigantic numbers, given the small number of theaters they are playing in. The Hateful Eight debuts with $4.5 million from 100 locations, while The Revenant will earn a projected $471,000 from just four theaters, for one of the best theater averages of all time.
- Weekend Estimates
Related articles:
Related pages:
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
- All-time domestic box office
- All-time worldwide box office
- Biggest 2nd weekends
- Biggest weekends
- Biggest combined gross for all movies
- The Force Awakens Doubles Previous Christmas Record with $49.34 Million
- The Force Awaken Feels Merry with Record Breaking Christmas Eve Haul of $27.59 Million
- Star Wars' Daily Record Streak Ends with $38.1 million Wednesday
- Weekend Predictions: Will The New Releases Experience Any Joy?
- International Box Office: The Force Awakens Sets Global Opening Record with $529 million
- Tuesday Record Falls to The Force Awakens with $37.3 million
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens Loves Mondays to the tune of $40.1 million
- Theater Averages: Star Wars Set Another Record with $59,982
- Weekend Wrap Up Box Office Breaks $300 million Mark
- Weekend Final Numbers: Star Wars Wreaks Havoc on Record Book
- Weekend Estimates: Force Awakens with Projected All Time Best 238 Million
- International Box Office: Star Wars Adds Germany to its Record Collection
- Analysis: Preview and Friday Numbers Point to $225 Million Weekend
- Star Wars is an Unstoppable Force
- Thursday Night Previews: Star Wars is Deadly to the Competition
- Star Wars Forces Its Way to the Top in United Kingdom
- Star Wars Starts Busting Records Around the World
- Weekend Predictions: How Big of a Force Will Star Wars be at the Box Office?
- Critics go Mad for The Force Awakens
- Star Wars’ Path to Avatar’s Three Titanic Records
- Eight Records Star Wars Needs to Break
- Six Records Star Wars is Certain to Break
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars franchise history
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens Recent Comparisons
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens All-Time Comparisons
- Theatrical Records
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens, Sisters, Point Break, Joy, The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, Concussion, Daddy’s Home, Star Wars, Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell