Star Wars overtakes Jurassic World for 3 rd place in global sales

A screen capture of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens“. Disney’s movies grossed $5.8 billion at the box office globally in 2015.

Anchoring this stellar worldwide box office performance was a record-setting $53 million debut in China, as Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned the biggest Saturday-Sunday opening of all time in the country.

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). “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.

So far, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has generated global revenue exceeding $1.7 billion.

With that total, the sci-fi film has made an estimated $812 million in the USA – the only film in history to make more than $800 million domestically. I’m learning things as you are, but I will say that it seems preposterous and wrong that the main character of the movie is not well represented in what is clearly a huge piece of the Star Wars world in terms of merchandising. That’s just a few million short of Inarritu’s last Oscar-winning film Birdman, which made $42.3 million during its entire run.

In other news, The Force Awakens surpassed Spectre as the highest-grossing film in the UK. That makes this the first weekend that the film grossed less than Avatar in a corresponding weekend.

Will Smith’s Concussion was down two spots to #10 in its third week with $3.1 million.

Third place went to “Daddy’s Home”, a sharp-edged comedy about the uncomfortable competition between a stepfather, played by Will Ferrell, and the biological father, Mark Wahlberg. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey may not have hosted the Golden Globes, but they sure are looking pretty with a $74.90 million domestic total.

Box Office Mojo’s inflation calculations have Avatar in 14th, behind such films as The Exorcist, Ben-Hur and the original animated 101 Dalmatians.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, $US5.5 million ($US5.8 million) 9.