Coverage: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” destroys box office records

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” opened this weekend to spectacular success. The seventh film in George Lucas’ hugely popular franchise grossed an estimated $238 million domestically and an additional  $279 million internationally.

Rich McCormick of The Verge summed up the movie’s chart-topping success:

As expected, The Force Awakens has achieved a historic opening weekend, toppling box office records like Ewoks knocking over AT-STs. The latest Star Wars movie scored an estimated $238 million from opening weekend tickets in the United States alone, beating the previous highest domestic opening weekend total of $208.8 million, set by Jurassic World earlier this year. It also netted the records for the biggest single day opening, the fastest movie to gross $1 million — taking only one day to achieve that feat — and helped set a new record for the most money ever taken in US movie theaters in a single weekend.

In addition to its domestic total, Disney reports that The Force Awakens earned $279 million from the international market, giving the movie a worldwide opening total of $517 million. That figure still lags slightly behind the best ever worldwide opening — also held by Jurassic World at $524.9 million — but there’s still time for the final confirmed numbers to push Star Wars over the top. People outside of the US may simply prefer dinosaurs to spaceships, but part of the disparity can be attributed to the delayed launch of the movie in China, removing the potential for a solid financial contribution from moviegoers in the growing market.

Although The Force Awakens grabbed the biggest single day launch ever, Jurassic World also maintained its claw grip on the largest Saturday and Sunday totals, and the new Star Wars is still some way off the domestic total box office record of $760.5 million, held by Avatar. But projections indicate that it could well supersede that total, riding the holiday wave to reach upwards of $800 million in the domestic market. From there, it’s still a long way to hit the worldwide lifetime total box office record of $2.78 billion — also held by Avatar — but based on its stellar performance, if anything can do it, it’s likely to be Star Wars.

The Associated Press explained how the movie is more a cultural phenomen than anything:

Rentrak’s Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian said that’s the key element that may push the film to the $2 billion mark by the end of its run. Many are already going back for a second helping.

“The enthusiasm has really turned into a cultural event,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s executive vice president of theatrical distribution. “It’s unbelievable.”

“It feels historic. The marketing team has embarked on a two-plus year journey to create this event feel,” Hollis added. “It’s hard to think you could replicate this, but never say never.”

Males overwhelmingly drove the astronomical earnings, comprising 58 percent of the audience.

“Many of the bigger films of the past few years have been driven by that often marginalized female audience,” Dergarabedian said. “This proves that if you put the right film in the marketplace, the guys will show up in big numbers. You can still break records with one gender being the dominant one.”

He predicted that over time, Daisy Ridley’s protagonist may help even the gender breakdown. Hollis agreed, noting that the breakdown evened out across the weekend too. Friday audiences were 63 percent male, he said.

The film also drew mainly adults, who made up 71 percent of the audience. Teens accounted for only 9 percent, but those numbers may go up in the coming weeks as holiday vacations kick in.

IMAX, 3D and other premium large format screens further helped drive the massive earnings. Nearly half of moviegoers — 47 percent —chose to see the film on the generally pricier screens. IMAX screens alone accounted for $48 million of the global earnings.

Brooks Barnes of The New York Times juxtaposed the movie’s success to the recent idea that going to the theater is a thing of the past:

Conventional wisdom holds that mass moviegoing is the pastime of another era. The cultural heat emanates from television now. Hollywood only churns out banal sequels and forgettable action films. Netflix is the new multiplex.

Well, the movies just struck back.

In an astounding display of cultural and commercial domination on a global scale — one with little precedent in the history of Hollywood — the Walt Disney Company’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” earned roughly $517 million in worldwide ticket sales, smashing multiple box office records, even after accounting for inflation.

It was the largest opening weekend in North America, with $238 million in ticket sales. To put that figure into perspective, consider that “Avatar” (2009), which analysts consider to be the highest-grossing film in history, with $3.1 billion in global ticket sales, took in $85 million over its first three days in domestic release; the previous record-holder for a December opening was “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (2012) with $87.5 million.

“Star Wars” has long been in a league of its own. But “The Force Awakens” also represents the way that Hollywood hopes to battle back after years of soft domestic ticket sales, piracy and competition from video games and television. Focusing on nostalgic film properties with familiar, often cherished characters, studios are assembling Death Star-sized movies that can capture the public’s imagination in ways reminiscent of the earliest years of blockbusterdom, before the hyper-fragmentation of pop culture.

Consumers are just beginning to see this strategy — “Jurassic World,” which took in $208.8 million over its first three days in June, was an early example — but studios have been engaging in a behind-the-scenes arms race for several years. The results are just now coming to market.