Mark Hamill skips ‘Star Wars’ appearance to visit sick kids
“The Force Awakens” is already the 22nd highest domestic grosser of all time. There’s no question on whether or not the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise will surpass Jurassic World in box office numbers, but the real question is when, and how quickly?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens only just arrived in theaters last week, but talk is now shifting to its follow-up. At this pace, it will reach $1 billion in less than two weeks. THR reports that The Force Awakens will pocket $35 million-$40 million on Christmas. At that point only The Phantom Menace ($1.027 billion) will stand between The Force Awakens and the top spot, and that too will go down by Sunday night.
Elsewhere in North America, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, like Star Wars, continued to see a boost from kids being out of school for Christmas. Now at $343.6 million internationally, the big news here is that Mockingjay Part 2 is finally past the $600 million mark worldwide after a bit over a month in theaters. Abrams may not elevate the language of “Star Wars”, but he sure is fluent in it. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is no more and no less than the movie that made us love it in the first place. But to those critics who protested Abrams was just remaking A New Hope and other Star Wars original trilogy landmarks, they are probably more relieved Abrams stepped back to just being a producer when he did.
The Good Dinosaur made $9.2 million in 3rd. This past weekend hit an all-time record for total ticket sales with $313M according to Rentrak, and we could see another $300M this weekend, which would be a historic Christmas frame. Right now, the global gross of the film amounts to be 53 percent of its $765 million worldwide, so using this same percentage, its global gross would be $630 million, producing a worldwide gross of $1.2 billion on its tenth day.