Box Office: The Force Awakens is Days Away From Beating Avatar

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A few days back, I had an important thought on Twitter:

I hope The Force Awakens beats Avatar’s all-time domestic record. The highest grossing film ever should at least be one that people like.

— Neil Miller (@rejects) December 27, 2015

This is how I spend my Sunday afternoons: thinking about box office records. It’s not particularly healthy, but it matters to me. And to some of you, I’m sure.

The tracking of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens box office has been a lot of fun. As fans, we really shouldn’t care too much about how much every movie makes. We should enjoy what we enjoy and do what we can to spread the word. That said, box office matters to the people who make the decisions about what gets made. So when a good movie — and The Force Awakens is a good movie — does well at the box office, it matters. As I’ve stated above, I’d be glad to see a movie that people like as the biggest box office hit in history. This is coming from a guy who did like Avatar when it came out and will readily admit that it hasn’t aged well. Will that be the same fate for The Force Awakens? Time will tell. For now, I like seeing it racing up the box office charts.

It’s also important that The Hateful Eight finished third this past weekend in its expansion to 2,474 theaters. It’s hauled in $29 million since Christmas, but up to this weekend it was only in 100 theaters. That’s a solid take for Tarantino’s latest, considering the slow rollout of the roadshow and the various problems its 70mm presentation experienced around the country.

By and large, it’s still all about Star Wars. With its $88 million take in its third weekend — a total that most movies would gladly take in their first weekend — it now sits at $740 million domestically, a mere $20 million short of Avatar‘s $760 million domestic record (something it accomplished in 34 weeks of release). It probably won’t take another weekend to break the record.

Next: Saying Goodbye to Star Wars Canon

Here’s an interesting question for the Internet hive mind: what are the early projections on Rogue One, the upcoming Star Wars anthology story? With The Force Awakens on its way to well over $800 million in domestic box office and a healthy shot at $2 billion worldwide, what do we think might happen for the first non-Skywalker saga? That will be very interesting to watch.

Source: Box Office Mojo