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Battle at the Box Office 12/21

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Shocking no one, Star Wars: The Force Awakens decimated the box office and shattered just about every record you could possibly shatter.  In fact, in broke so many records this weekend, we have to do a bulleted list.

  • Largest Thursday night preview of all time
  • Largest Friday of all time
  • Largest opening weekend of all time
  • Highest per theater average of all time
  • Highest opening ever for a PG-13 movie
  • Highest holiday opening of all time
  • Highest single day gross of December
  • Widest December opening of all time
  • Highest December opening weekend of all time
  • Fastest time to $100 million
  • Highest global IMAX opening
  • Highest domestic IMAX opening

When all was said and done, The Force Awakens made $238 million for it’s first weekend and with the amount of love from Star Wars fans, they’re going to probably see it multiple times and this week’s Christmas line-up is fairly weak, so it’s going to be on top for a while.

There were two other movies that dared to open against Star Wars and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip took a distant second with $14.4 million, which continues the downward trend of the series, as each subsequent movie since the first has made less and less money opening weekend.  The Squeakquel is the highest opening movie of the series with $48 million.

Sisters took third with $13.4 million, which was actually down from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s last team up, Baby Mama, but Baby Mama wasn’t against a juggernaut like Star Wars.  Around the same time in 2012, This is 40 came out against the first Hobbit and made around $11 million, so Sisters held out slightly better against a much bigger competitor.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and Creed rounded out the top 5.

In the Heart of the Sea continued to bomb, especially with Star Wars opening.  It fell 68% from last weekend and dropped from second to eighth with only another $3.4 million and it’s made $18 million so far on a $100 million budget.

Two Bollywood movies rounded out the top 10, Dilwale and Bajirao Mastrani, both of which opened in around 300 theaters.

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