If The Force Awakens has a New Year’s resolution, it’s to break bigger and better box-office records: The seventh Star Wars film raked in roughly $88.3 million this weekend, according to estimates from Box Office Mojo and Disney, and notched second place on the all-time domestic list (not adjusted for inflation). Titanic previously held second place there with $658.7 million, but Star Wars’ strong third weekend gave it a tally of $740.3 million. At just $20 million behind the leading Avatar, Force Awakens will likely steal the No. 1 spot before the end of this week. On the global front, J.J. Abrams’s latest recently overtook Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.4 billion), for sixth place with $1.5 billion; Avatar also tops the all-time worldwide list with $2.8 billion. Star Wars has catching up to do there, but it finally opens in China on Saturday, which should give it a boost.
In other box-office news, Will Ferrell’s Daddy’s Home came in at second for the weekend, with $29 million, followed by Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight ($16.2 million) and Sisters ($12.6 million). Hateful Eight got a nice surge from the previous week because of a surprise digital expansion that saw the film go from 100 screens to 2,474. Filling out the rest of the top ten were Alvin and the Chipmunks ($11.8 million), Joy ($10.4 million), The Big Short ($9 million), Concussion ($8 million), Point Break ($6.8 million), and the latest Hunger Games ($4.6 million) — all of which should help put into perspective the impressive nature of Star Wars’ run, which will probably keep being impressive until Deadpool or Batman v Superman disrupts things.
