‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Crosses $1 Billion At Box Office, Becomes Fastest Film To Do So
From the archive: published Dec 27, 2015, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the fastest film to ever pass $1 billion at the box office, doing so just 9 days after it premiered at the U.S. box office.
Over the course of its second weekend at the box office, Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed the massive amount of $153.5 million at the U.S. box office, a total that every other blockbuster would crave for in its opening weekend. This was just a 38 percent drop from its $247.97 million opening weekend gross.
As of December 27, 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken in a total of $1.091 billion at the box office since it was released on December 18 in the U.S., and a day earlier in the likes of France and the United Kingdom. $544.6 million of this total was amassed in North America, while $546 million has been grossed in the variety of other worldwide territories.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens blew each of these out of the water though, and it only needed ten days to reach its $1.090 billion total. The previous record for reaching $1 billion belonged to Jurassic World, which only needed thirteen days to gross this amount.
Despite only being in cinemas for 10 days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already broken several records in this period. In fact, its $544.6 million domestic haul means that it is already ahead of The Dark Knight’s $534 million. It’s also been predicted that by next weekend, it will have taken in $700 million domestically, which means that it would be on the cusp of passing Avatar’s total, too.
The only films that are currently in front of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ domestic total are The Avengers ($623.3 million), Jurassic World ($652.2 million), Titanic ($658.6 million), and Avatar ($760.5 million). Some box office experts have even predicted that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will ultimately gross over $1 billion at the U.S. box office alone.
While it’s safe to assume that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will have no problem passing the $1.669 billion that Jurassic World grossed overall, it remains to be seen if it can get past the $2.78 and $2.18 that the James Cameron directed Avatar and Titanic amassed. A key component in Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ attempt to beat these totals will be its performance in China.
It also helps Star Wars: The Force Awakens that it really doesn’t have too much competition coming up from new films in the next few weeks. In fact, the only new films that have a genuine chance of eclipsing Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be Michael Bay’s new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi and the Kevin Hart and Ice Cube comedy, Ride Along 2, both of which are only going to be released on January 15.
