Unsurprisingly, The Force Awakens did what everyone expected it to this weekend, and completely demolished the all time opening weekend record, which was just set this year by Jurassic World, launching with 247 million- a new domestic number that beats JW's 208 million. I would say it's unlikely to be matched by anything else so soon, except maybe another Star Wars movie, but the Force is definitely still there with moviegoers of all ages, as the demographics for this film were widespread across every age group. I underestimated it, assuming the widely loathed prequels might have taken at least a little bit of luster off this franchise, at least for younger viewers, but no sirree. That's a pretty massive testament to the power of that original trilogy, isn't it?
With that now accomplished, you can go ahead and expect this to be the biggest movie of all time, surpassing Avatar's 750 million domestic gross from 2009, I suppose. Word of mouth is strong, reviews are positive- there's no reason to assume a massive dropoff will occur. Worldwide it's already amassed over 610 million, setting opening records in Britain and France as well. Not that any other box office story really mattered this weekend, but Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's new comedy Sisters opened with 13 million for third place, while the fourth Chipmunks movie came in second with 14 million. Creed and Mockingjay-Part 2 rounded out the top five, bringing their totals to 87 and 254 million, respectively.
Top 5:
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens- 247 million
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip- 14.4 million
- Sisters- 13.4 million
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2- 5.7 million
- Creed- 5.1 million
There's not much to say about the limited release films this week, so let's go on about Star Wars, shall we? In addition to the opening weekend records, it also set the opening day record of 120 million, making it the first movie ever to gross over 100 million in a single day. But I should say we are sort of in uncharted territory here, because for it to cross Avatar's 750 million total it needs to have some serious legs, and Avatar and Titanic are the only winter openings to ever make that kind of blockbuster coin, and they didn't do it with massive opening weekends. Nope, they did it with good old-fashioned sustainability, which is the way big movies that open in winter tend to- this one is a very summer kind of opening, and those don't usually have the kinds of heavy legs Cameron's two epics did. So we're going to see if it plays like a James Cameron film or if it bottoms out before it can reach those kinds of heights. Stay tuned. Next week it's Christmas, which sees the openings of several films- The Big Short, Joy, The Hateful Eight, Daddy's Home and Concussion will all try to compete with TFA, and none of them will measure up as they try to eat into that holiday moviegoing crowd. Happy Holidays, everyone.
