The 12 Days of Box Office - Day Nine

By David Mumpower

December 30, 2015

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Previously in the 12 Days of Box Office, I indicated that the next time I spoke to you, Star Wars: The Force Awakens would be past the $550 million mark domestically. Guess what? I really underestimated it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the fifth film to reach $600 million, and is the third since 2012 to accomplish that feat. Of course, Star Wars is going to smoke those other two films, Jurassic World and The Avengers, within the next couple of days. Yesterday, the film earned $29.5 million, a decline of only 6% from Monday’s $31.4 million. Tuesday should have been a great day, of course, as 70% of the top 10 experienced gains. Still, the fact that Star Wars held ground at a $30 million daily pace is stunning.

The most impressive part of this story is that Star Wars: The Force Awakens fell only $7.8 million from last Tuesday to yesterday. That’s 79% retention for a film that enjoyed the best first week in box office history. Pick your favorite superlatives. They all apply to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The film should also hold ground today, which will take it past The Avengers to become the fourth biggest film of all-time domestically. On January 1st, possibly even New Year’s Eve, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will also fly by Jurassic World to become the most popular domestic release ever directed by someone other than James Cameron.

This also seems like a great time to celebrate Cameron’s accomplishments. On March 23, 1998, the director’s Titanic finished in first place for the 14th consecutive weekend. It also won 11 Academy Awards that fateful night. Cameron rightly declared himself “king of the world,” and it has been true ever since. The only film that surpassed Titanic was Cameron’s follow-up, Avatar.




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Cameron is less than three months away from the 18th anniversary of becoming box office champion, but he will not reach that 18-year mark. He’s not even guaranteed to last through the end of the week. Avatar earned $760.5 million domestically. Star Wars probably won’t reach that total by Sunday, but I can’t rule it out, either. We’ll spend the rest of this week figuring out exactly when it will happen, but we’re talking about single digits of days until we get there.

Unlike last week, there are a couple of other films to mention. Daddy’s Home is particularly noteworthy, as the Paramount Pictures release enjoyed the 26th largest December opening weekend ever. You probably missed this fact because it happened at precisely the wrong moment, what with Star Wars dominating all discussion. The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg reunion garnered another $7 million yesterday, which brings its running total to $52.1 million. That’s particularly impressive when you consider that it had a $50 million budget.

Will Ferrell’s career has been in so much of a death spiral that even Anchorman 2 didn’t save it; however, the 2015 combination of Get Hard and Daddy’s Home proves that all he needs is the right co-star to enjoy the benefit of the doubt from North American movie-goers. Next up for Ferrell is Zoolander 2, which has attracted positive buzz and excitement from its previews so far.

The news is not as great for Joy, the latest reunion of the cast and director of Silver Linings Playbook. The $60 million production opened to a solid $17 million over three days. After its top three weekend finish, however, it has promptly dropped to fifth place. Joy earned $2.8 million yesterday, up 9% from Monday’s $2.6 million. Currently, it doesn’t look like a financial disaster; however, it will need major love from the Academy Awards in order to become a serious box office factor.


     


 
 

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