'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' becomes fastest film to hit $1 billion

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,253   +192
Staff member

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the fastest movie to surpass the $1 billion mark at the box office, doing so this past Sunday. It took the film just 12 days to reach the milestone, one day faster than the previous record-holder, Jurassic World.

As the Associated Press points out, Jurassic World had a huge advantage in the fact that it earned record grosses in China, the world's second-largest movie market. J.J. Abrams' film doesn't make its debut in China until January 9.

Disney's The Force Awakens also set a new record as the biggest Christmas Day haul in history at $49.3 million. It also took in the most money ever for a second-weekend film with earnings of $153.5 million. These are in addition to multiple opening-weekend records it set following its December 17 debut.

Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian from Rentrak said you almost have to rewrite all the record books for the movie, adding that it's absolutely mind-blowing that Star Wars could get to the $1 billion mark in 12 days without even opening in China.

Have you had a chance to see the new Star Wars movie yet? If so, what did you think? I'm not a Star Wars fan although I've seen an equal mix of both praise and criticism (and tons of merchandise) thus far. Feel free to chime in with your feedback in the comments section below.

Image courtesy Jesse Grant, Getty Images

Permalink to story.

 
I'm sure it will beat out Avatar eventually but I don't think China will make a huge difference. It doesn't seem to have a huge following as it does in the US and Europe and it hasn't done all that well in other Asian countries (it was beat out by an animated movie in Japan). Disney is trying though and dropping large sums of money on marketing the movie.
 
There is this thing called inflation. Really wish they would go off of how many tickets were sold.
 
There is this thing called inflation. Really wish they would go off of how many tickets were sold.
That is what Japan does actually they just count the ticket sales which is why an animated movie beat out Force Awakens.
 
I don't see what benefit it had on america since it was filmed in england. Where does all this money go and why? And to see how they recoup their $2 billion investment in lucasfilm. The profit couldn't be more than $300 million for each movie seeing that they rebuilt everything in england that was at skywalker ranch in california. The millenium falcon was even different. Lets get our mbas, or what does the mba teach at present? Offshore everything to a more expensive country? I used to live in california but I just don't see what sustains it anymore. Even apple is registered to nevada where its taxes are paid.
 
Because you can probably find a lot of geeks (including myself) who love Star Wars, however irrelevant it may be.

True, but that still doesn't make it right. How many people think TechSpot was catering to the hardcore audience? *chirping crickets*.
How many people think TechSpot was whoring out the popularity of the new 'Star War's movie for extra hits? *raging mob begin rioting in the streets*.

Case closed. :)
 
True, but that still doesn't make it right. How many people think TechSpot was catering to the hardcore audience? *chirping crickets*.
How many people think TechSpot was whoring out the popularity of the new 'Star War's movie for extra hits? *raging mob begin rioting in the streets*.

Case closed. :)

Efficient Targeting by Techspot. But yeah, makes sense.
 
Hey! They got a hover board on the market now so the light saber has to be just around the corner! I'd call that worthy of the techspot ... or dingleberry spot ..... well, some kind of spot! (fade in the Northern Tissue commercial with little bears talking about being able to wear same underwear two days in a row ... )
 
I don't see what benefit it had on america since it was filmed in england. Where does all this money go and why? And to see how they recoup their $2 billion investment in lucasfilm. The profit couldn't be more than $300 million for each movie seeing that they rebuilt everything in england that was at skywalker ranch in california. The millenium falcon was even different. Lets get our mbas, or what does the mba teach at present? Offshore everything to a more expensive country? I used to live in california but I just don't see what sustains it anymore. Even apple is registered to nevada where its taxes are paid.

You don't need an MBA to know that the (American) ticket sales, (American) merchandise sales, and all applicable taxes are of "benefit" to America.
 
I saw it in a Multiplex in IMAX 3D.
The word Great sounds too less.
The effects / everything was Class.

The movie on the whole excellent even though it was 2 Hours 18 Minutes. Not Boring at all.

Watching a George Lucas Film has very big difference

-edit by LNCPapa
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I think he was probably eluding more to the likes of 'Gone With the Wind ' 198m in 1939 dollars or about 3.4B in todays dollars. So The 'Force Awakens' will likely handily eclipse GWTW In short order.
That will make The Star Wars franchise the holder of #1 and #4 in real box office dollar adjusted film gross of all time. ( Star Wars 4 (1977) made 466M or 2.8B adjusted.
...now if someone could explain 'Avatar', 'Titanic, and Jurassic's success to me ...meh.
 
I saw the original Star Wars film back in the 70's with Harrison Ford, thought it was a load of trash and since then paid no attention to any of the sequels or any games it spawned.
 
Only sad part is that ....

Agree with everything else but you should edit in forum mode and remove that stinking spoiler asap. Not fair to people who haven't seen the movie.

I've seen it 3 times so far and got IMAX bfi Waterloo (largest screen in uk) to enjoy in a couple of weeks. Not surprised it's got past a billion.
 
I think he was probably eluding more to the likes of 'Gone With the Wind ' 198m in 1939 dollars or about 3.4B in todays dollars. So The 'Force Awakens' will likely handily eclipse GWTW In short order.

Actually it made $390 Million at the box office, in 1939, and it was a movie that was almost 4 HOURS LONG, at least according to the film's Wiki. So double your inflation value and this movie is likely never going to be beat...

Factor in the today's price of regular tickets $$ let alone 3D tickets $$$, Ultra AVX $$$$, IMAX $$$$$, ect... it would be nice to know how many actual tickets were sold, and that's how they really should be comparing movies, but profit is profit and execs only see the profit.

I don't see what benefit it had on america since it was filmed in england. Where does all this money go and why? And to see how they recoup their $2 billion investment in lucasfilm.

Disney is going to make a killing on merchandise, actually merchandise sales are estimated to have hit the $5 Billion mark before the end of this year, I see that as recouping the profit rather quickly, and they still have 5 more movies to make. Clearly not a holder of an MBA if you can't even figure this out. Or whatever they teach...

Personally I enjoyed the film, not everyone will, however almost everyone I know has enjoyed it, age not being a factor, although I have not spoken to anyone below the age of 20 about it yet. Regardless of how much it cost to make and how much money it will gross, I still liked it and am looking forward to the next one in the series.

P.S. The spoiler should be removed or hidden, that's just not right.
 
I think he was probably eluding more to the likes of 'Gone With the Wind ' 198m in 1939 dollars or about 3.4B in todays dollars. So The 'Force Awakens' will likely handily eclipse GWTW In short order.

Actually it made $390 Million at the box office, in 1939, and it was a movie that was almost 4 HOURS LONG, at least according to the film's Wiki. So double your inflation value and this movie is likely never going to be beat...

That 198 million is domestic only, the actual total is what you said it was.
 
There is this thing called inflation. Really wish they would go off of how many tickets were sold.

Don't they do that already? Every time I read an article about how much money a movie has brought in and they compare it to other movies, they generally state that inflation is included in the figures.
 
There is this thing called inflation. Really wish they would go off of how many tickets were sold.
I don't see what benefit it had on america since it was filmed in england. Where does all this money go and why? And to see how they recoup their $2 billion investment in lucasfilm. The profit couldn't be more than $300 million for each movie seeing that they rebuilt everything in england that was at skywalker ranch in california. The millenium falcon was even different. Lets get our mbas, or what does the mba teach at present? Offshore everything to a more expensive country? I used to live in california but I just don't see what sustains it anymore. Even apple is registered to nevada where its taxes are paid.

No one wants to hear your nonsense you do not know how the force works sir.
 
I think he was probably eluding more to the likes of 'Gone With the Wind ' 198m in 1939 dollars or about 3.4B in todays dollars. So The 'Force Awakens' will likely handily eclipse GWTW In short order.

Actually it made $390 Million at the box office, in 1939, and it was a movie that was almost 4 HOURS LONG, at least according to the film's Wiki. So double your inflation value and this movie is likely never going to be beat...

Factor in the today's price of regular tickets $$ let alone 3D tickets $$$, Ultra AVX $$$$, IMAX $$$$$, ect... it would be nice to know how many actual tickets were sold, and that's how they really should be comparing movies, but profit is profit and execs only see the profit.

I don't see what benefit it had on america since it was filmed in england. Where does all this money go and why? And to see how they recoup their $2 billion investment in lucasfilm.

Disney is going to make a killing on merchandise, actually merchandise sales are estimated to have hit the $5 Billion mark before the end of this year, I see that as recouping the profit rather quickly, and they still have 5 more movies to make. Clearly not a holder of an MBA if you can't even figure this out. Or whatever they teach...

Personally I enjoyed the film, not everyone will, however almost everyone I know has enjoyed it, age not being a factor, although I have not spoken to anyone below the age of 20 about it yet. Regardless of how much it cost to make and how much money it will gross, I still liked it and am looking forward to the next one in the series.

P.S. The spoiler should be removed or hidden, that's just not right.

This Jedi knows what he is talking about.
 
Back