When the weekend box office estimates for Star Wars: The Force Awakens came in yesterday, we learned that the film broke a lot of records, save for one. The film easily surpassed the domestic opening weekend record set by Jurassic World, but worldwide it looked like it fell short of Jurassic World’s global launch of $524.9 million with a $517 million worldwide total for J.J. Abrams' sci-fi sequel. However, per THR, those estimates are now being adjusted up, with The Force Awakens now looking like it actually scored $528 million worldwide, which would best Jurassic World for the highest global opening weekend of all time.

This is impressive for a number of reasons, especially the fact that the movie has yet to open in China. Jurassic World had opened in China when it set the record, so this lack of a key market was singled out as the reason why The Force Awakens didn’t break that worldwide goal—and yet it looks like it actually did, with that lucrative influx still to come.


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Image via Lucasfilm

So where did this extra money come from? Well the international total has been adjusted up $3 million to $281 million, and yesterday, estimates put the film’s domestic total at $238 million, which easily bested Jurassic World’s $208 million record set earlier this year. But now it appears as though that domestic estimate was short—the film actually looks to have pulled in $247 million domestically for the weekend, with the possibility that even that could be adjusted up once the final numbers come in.

In short, this is only the beginning. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in China on January 9th, where it’s expected to perform extremely well, and the film should also have really, really long legs here at home. Plenty of folks have already seen the movie multiple times, but with the holiday movie season offering little by way of entertainment for the entire family and January being the wasteland that it is, I imagine The Force Awakens train will keep on truckin’ for many, many weeks to come. Could it beat Avatar’s global record of $2.7 billion worldwide? Quite possibly. And what film will unseat it from the #1 box office throne? Will Star Wars reign supreme until Kung Fu Panda 3 on January 29th? Again, very possible.

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Image via Lucasfilm

For now, here’s a look at the box office records the film has broken so far:

  • Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57M
  • Biggest Friday and biggest single-day gross with $120.5M
  • First film ever to post a single day over $100M
  • Fastest film to $100M and $200M
  • Biggest December debut (nearly 3 times previous record of $84.6M)
  • Biggest IMAX Thursday night preview ($5.7M), single-day ($14M, and weekend ($30.1M)
  • Highest theater average for a wide release ($57,568)
  • Biggest opening weekend of all time in UK (4-day), Australia, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Poland (3-day), Denmark (5-day), Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland, Serbia, New Zealand. Second biggest opening weekend in France, Belgium, Israel, Chile.
  • Biggest IMAX global debut of $48M
  • Biggest domestic opening weekend with $247M
  • Biggest worldwide opening weekend with $528M

For more on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, peruse our recent links below.

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Image via Lucasfilm