‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Slays ‘The Revenant’ in Fourth No

Director J.J. Abrams has confirmed in a new interview that there will not be an extended cut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens released on Blu-ray and DVD, although it’s more likely that the home video release of the film will include deleted scenes.

And earlier in the week, The Force Awakens surpassed Avatar to become the largest domestic movie in history, but it is still $1 billion behind Avatar’s worldwide total of $2.79 billion. Jurassic World (US$1.67 billion) had previously been No. 3. The movie zoomed past the$760.5 million record set by Avatar to become the highest-grossing film in the USA and Canada in just 20 days.

The force was strong with Leonardo DiCaprio, but not quite strong enough to dethrone “Star Wars” from its perch atop box office charts. With its sales figures on the first day of the movie’s release in the country, “The Force Awakens” has achieved the third-best opening-day performance in China’s history, reports Yahoo!

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s comedy Sisters rounded out the Top 5 with $7.2-M for a domestic take of $73.9-M. It earned $13.1 million in 2,451 theaters, which was a little more than expected, but it only earned a C on Cinemascore. So let’s kindly forget my thoughts from last week where I said it had a shot at hitting $100M, shall we? The Revenant, a gritty R-rated movie directed by Alejandro Inarritu about an 1820s frontiersman who gets mauled by a bear, blasted through expectations of about $US25 million in its first weekend of wide release with a $US38 million haul, following limited showings in NY and Los Angeles in December. It sits in sixth place with $6.4 million.

A tale of two fathers: Daddy’s Home, starring Will Ferrell as a step-father competing with his wife’s first husband, played by Mark Wahlberg, for her kid’s affections, took third place with $15 million. Domestically, it has pulled $39.5 million so far. That brought its running total to $116 million and gives it a chance to reach $150 before it is done.

Rounding out the top ten were: The Hateful Eight ($6.3 million); The Big Short ($6.3 million); Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip ($5.5 million); Joy ($4.5 million); and, Concussion ($3.1 million). The movie came out in China on January 9. War Room took in $96 million with a $4.3 million budget.