Overseas, the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise grossed more than $100-million this weekend, helping to propel it past “Jurassic World” for the third slot in all-time worldwide gross, at $1.73-billion.
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“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has opened in both Germany and China and is the 4th highest money earner in Germany and the 3rd highest grossing movie worldwide in history.
The China figures represent the highest Saturday or Sunday movie opening in the country in industry history, the Disney film studio said in a statement.
The dinosaur epic, starring Chris Pratt, grossed a global total of $1.67 billion following its release last June (15), placing it behind James Cameron films Titanic and Avatar, which holds the top spot with $2.78 billion.
In fact, according to the Financial Times, China is even expected to eclipse the U.S.as the world’s largest film market within the next two years. Despite the economic slowdown there, receipts at Chinas box office surged almost 50 percent a year ago, compared with the 7.2 percent growth seen in North America.
Nomura Holdings Inc. estimates “The Force Awakens” will gross as much as 1.5 billion yuan ($228 million) in China, which would fall short of breaking records set past year.
Chinese cinemas dedicated half their screens to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when it debuted on Saturday, according to the Walt Disney Company China.
“Star Wars” is still on top at the box office, but it saw its first real taste of competition with the debut of “The Revenant”.
Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio proved that he still has a lot of box office power in bringing The Revenant to a very strong #2 with $38 million.
It has become the first to make more than $800m (£550m), having taken $812m (£558m) so far. The lone new release this weekend, horror flick The Forest, bowed in at fourth place with $13 million.
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s Daddy’s Home continued it’s impressive run with an estimated $15M in its third weekend, a drop of 48% from last weekend’s holiday infused grosses.
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The braindead Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy ‘Sisters’ rounded out the Top 5 in its fourth week with $7.1 million.
