The box office news remains solid for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. While the film is no longer number one in the US it still is making the kind of numbers in its 5th week of release that most movies consider a great opening with a total of $32M for the US holiday bring its US total to $858.5M. Internationally the film made $47.3M bringing its total past $1 billion for a worldwide total of $1.86 billion. On the all time list this places past Jurassic World's $1.669B total to the number three slot just behind Titanic's $2.18B and Avatar's $2.78B totals.
As for passing Avatar, that simply isn't going to happen and now it looks like it will not pass Titanic's total either. This is due to the movie not being the success Disney had hoped for in China. While the film's first weekend was an excellent $53 million, bad reviews in the country caused a whopping 72% nosedive for a $14.8M take this past weekend. Disney needed the film to make close to $500M in the country to pass Titanic, now it looks like it will barely make $125M there. If such a nosedive occurred in the States the film would be considered a complete failure, studio stock would suffer and probably a few careers would end. Fortunately China isn't that important to Hollywood's fortunes (yet) but it did put the kibosh on any new box office records. My best guess is the nostalgia factor that was a selling point in the United States and elsewhere actually went against the film in China. The Force Awakens in a substantial number of ways is essentially a remake of A New Hope. Here that generated high praise, in China that nostalgia vein simply doesn't exist. Chances are Disney will continue to spend substantial amount of money in the country to improve Star Wars familiarity in the country so the Episode VIII doesn't suffer the same fate.
As of now, it looks like the film might just go over $2 billion but its going to be close (~$900M US, ~$1.1B international) by the time it exists most theaters by mid-February. Definitely something to brag about over at Lucasfilm and something to build on for the next five or so years of Star Wars films that are in the pipeline.
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