‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ ($41M) declaws ‘The Revenant’ atop box office

Over the weekend, Disney said that the latest installment of “Star Wars” had surged to third place in all-time global box office receipts, overtaking “Jurassic World” after a blockbuster debut in China that pushed its total to $1.73 billion.

It was estimated by a Disney executive that the China opening for the movie earned an incredible $53 million for the weekend.

Success in China, the worlds second-largest movie market, is increasingly key for Hollywood studios as analysts predict Chinese ticket sales will overtake us sales as soon as next year.

The Walt Disney Company (DIS) released its highly anticipated movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens near the end of past year.

The Force Awakens zoomed past the US$760.5 million record set by Avatar to become the highest- grossing film in the USA and Canada in just 20 days.

A Force Awakens is still a major hit at the box office, plans are already in place to start work on the next movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a prequel to the 1977 original. The movie came in at No. 4 with $13.1 million, performing slightly above expectations. This leaves only Titanic ($2.1865B worldwide) and Avatar ($2.788B) left in its path. Will it be able to make another billion dollars? Researcher Rentrak Corp. estimates “Furious 7” generated $391.4 million in the country in 2015 and “Monster Hunt”, a Chinese fantasy movie, grossed $393.2 million.

For the fourth consecutive week, “Star Wars” held the top spot at the box office and continued breaking records.

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.

Combined with its grosses from the two weeks it spent in limited release, “The Revenant” has now made $39.5 million.

Among awards season hopefuls, Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” dropped a steep 60% from its wide release bow despite adding 464 theaters. The Natalie Dormer-starring horror film premiered with $13.1 million domestically, ahead of the $8 million to $9 million that was expected.

Also continuing a strong run was the tag team of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler with Sisters taking in an estimated $7.2M this weekend, bringing its cume after four weekends to $75M.