The 12 Days of Box Office - Day Six

Weekend Wrap-Up: Star Wars, Overall Box Office Sizzle and

By John Hamann

December 27, 2015

Born to be bad. Well, not really. He's going through some stuff.

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Wow. That Star Wars magic is everywhere now.

The box office record book is in shambles again this weekend again as Star Wars: The Force Awakens continues to roll, lifting all of the individual titles and overall box office to amazing heights again. The top 12 films have six new entries on the list, and none of them truly failed, although Point Break wobbled. We also have two of the biggest ever limited releases in The Hateful Eight and The Revenant. There is a ton of box office news today, but the lead is the same as last weekend, as The Force Awakens continues to dictate.

To start the weekend, Star Wars: The Force Awakens continued its historic run on Christmas Day, grossing an incredible $49.3 million, obliterating the previous record for a Christmas Day take (Sherlock Holmes and his $24.6 million gross are now a very distant memory). As BOP's Tim Briody said yesterday, that Friday score when compared to The Force Awakens opening day of $119.1 million was off a severe 59% - however, once the $57 million in Thursday preview amounts are stripped out, last weekend's "true" Friday was really $62.1 million, which means the Friday-to-Friday drop was actually 21%. At the monetary levels being thrown around here, that hold is simply spectacular. Comparisons to Jurassic World and Marvel's Avengers are now really moot, and the only comparisons left are the two James Cameron blockbusters, Avatar and Titanic. We are in a rocket to the moon that is currently racing past mountain climbers.




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Yes, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is simply leaving The Avengers and Jurassic World behind, as with every day that passes, these films fall further and further behind, despite the fact that they are the #3 and #4 biggest domestic grossers of all time. As of end of business on Friday, Star Wars was $140 million ahead of The Avengers and $115 million ahead of Jurassic World, and that spread was set to increase as the weekend continued. To be honest, I thought the pace of The Force Awakens would have slowed by now, with the advance tickets now being used up, and records for fastest to $100 million, $200 million, $300 million already being set.

On Friday, The Force Awakens did it again, crossing the $400 million mark in record time, hitting it in only eight days. Jurassic World completed the same feat in 10 days - but that 10 days takes into account two full weekends, whereas Star Wars only had a weekend a third to accomplish the same feat. In movie history, only 18 films have crossed the $400 million mark, and The Force Awakens did it in a little over a week, averaging $55 million a day. With the calendar configured for a Christmas Day Friday for the first time since 2009 (when Avatar was hot) that was not going to be the only record that fell this weekend.


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