‘Star Wars’ takes off in China, crosses $800 million in US

George Lucas’ prequel trilogy films, for example, made around $13-$15 million each when released between 1999 and 2005. Age of Ultron finished with 240.1 million from China, being a large portion of the total oversees amount, $946 million. “The Force Awakens” was in a pitched battle with “The Revenant” for first place, but managed to retain its crown for the fourth straight weekend, picking up 41.6 million in receipts.

The latest Star Wars movie has now become the third biggest grossing movie ever, worldwide.

Still, Disney faces bigger hurdles in matching its United States success in China and other Asian countries, where the Star Wars franchise isn’t as well known or have as big a following as in Western countries. It went on to gross $390.9 million in China, just over a quarter of its total earnings.

This weekend, Force Awakens will also sail past the $1.669 billion grossed worldwide by Jurassic World to become the No. 3 movie of all time behind Avatar ($2.78 billion) and Titanic ($2.19 billion), not accounting for inflation.

J.J. Abrams-directed Force Awakens has already surpassed Avatar to rank as the highest-grossing film ever in North America, not accounting for inflation.

While The Force Awakens remains the undisputed box office champ in Germany, it is beginning to see some competition.

It also continued to reign over the North American box office, where it grossed another $41.6 million (£27.7 million) to successfully fight off Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant, which debuts at two with $38 million (£25.3 million).

Chinese box office figures are becoming more integral to the overall tally of films.

Joy was down three spots to #9 in its third weekend with $4.5 million.

Fifth on the list was “Sisters”, with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, which made $7.2 million in its fourth week out. “Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight” dropped a steep 60% from its wide release bow despite adding 464 theaters. So let’s kindly forget my thoughts from last week where I said it had a shot at hitting $100M, shall we?

“It features a battalion of very fine, hardworking actors, none more diligently committed than Mr. DiCaprio, and some of the most lovely natural tableaus you’re likely to see in a movie this year”, Manohla Dargis wrote in the New York Times.