Disney has marketed the Force Awakens aggressively in China, where the Star Wars franchise doesn’t have the same legacy as in North America or Europe.
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“The Force Awakens” brought in an estimated $41.6 million, but the real story was overseas. “The Revenant” still had much to celebrate. But Westerns have a history of strong legs at the box office, particularly if they become awards contenders.
This photo provided by courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox shows, Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, in a scene from the film, “The Revenant”, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. This was enough to push the film past $900 million internationally. Next week’s estimates place it as declining in the 60% range and ultimately fading away in the mid-$20 millions. That said, Abrams has also confirmed that there are no plans to put out an extended version of the film on disc. We may get deleted scenes when the DVD and Blu-ray come around, though, but nothing has been announced thus far. It has made since debuting over Christmas. Now I think theres a specialness to this film that might have been lost earlier.Of the Top 10 films this weekend, only Focus Features The Forest was in theaters for the first time over the weekend, coming in fourth at $13.1 million.
Fifth on the list was “Sisters”, with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, which made $7.2 million in its fourth week out.
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The only wide release (since The Revenant had a two-week limited release) this weekend was the horror film The Forest starring Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer. The film has now earned $1.73 billion globally after yet another strong weekend. The Hateful Eight, $US6.4 million ($US12 million) 7. With that said, China is a very different market now. “Detective Chinatown”, $11.8 million. 6. “Point Break”, $6 million. 13. The budget was $35 million. While that may seem like a lot, it’s weak when compared to films such as Avengers: Age of Ultron which opened to $155 million a year ago. As expected, the spaceship chases are more intense than ever, the lightsaber effects are simply phenomenal, and, naturally, Chewbacca remains one of the best-loved characters to star in anything, ever. In the next few weeks it should also top the $1.16 worldwide gross by Furious 7 to claim number 1 on all three 2015 charts.
