Star Wars: The Force Awakens wisely gave fans what they wanted, and fans are rewarding the film in kind with multiple viewings that are driving the picture to record-breaking box office. This weekend, the film shattered the current record for the Christmas weekend by hauling in $153.5 million. To give you some perspective, on Christmas Day alone, when the movie had already been in theaters for a week, it grossed $49 million compared to previous record, Sherlock Holmes, which brought in $24 million.
In addition to taking the record for Christmas Day, Star Wars: The Force Awakens now has the highest second weekend of all-time, and it’s the fastest film to cross $1 billion globally. Both records previously belonged to Jurassic World, but Star Wars’ joining the increasingly inclusive $1 billion club is made more impressive by the fact that the film still hasn’t opened in China and won’t do so until January 9th (Jurassic World opened day-and-date in China).
At this pace, THR believes that The Force Awakens is likely to become the highest-grossing domestic film of all-time, which would finally knock off Avatar ($760.5 million), and perhaps even worldwide as well, but we’ll have to see how it weathers January.
But there were other movies at the multiplex this weekend. The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy’s Home pulled in $38.8 million over the weekend, which was good enough to net it second place. We also saw the wide-release of David O. Russell’s Joy, which nabbed the #3 slot by making $17.5 million at the box office.
However, not all was merry among the Christmas weekend releases. The Will Smith drama Concussion opened at #6 with an estimated gross of $11 million, which makes it the lowest wide release opening of Smith’s career. But it could be worse. It could be the expensive remake of Point Break, which bombed into 8th place with a gross of $10.2 million.
Finally, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight got a limited release with a 70mm roadshow release in 100 theaters that was good enough to land it in the Top 10 with a haul of $4.5 million, which shakes out to a location average of $45,366. The Revenant also played in limited release, and it grossed an impressive $471,000 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $117,750.
