More box office records have fallen as ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ took in another $40 million on Monday, shattering the previous record of $27.6 million set by Spider-Man 2 as it surpassed $610 million worldwide.
It is now the fastest film to hit $250 million domestically as that and other records continue to line up just so they can be knocked down, Boxofficemojo.com reported.
Should the trend continue, ‘Star Wars’ would top $400 million by midnight on Friday, $500 million by Saturday evening and close out Sunday around $580 million.
As expected, ‘The Force Awakens’ achieved a historic opening weekend, toppling box office records. The latest Star Wars movie scored an estimated $238 million from opening weekend tickets in the US 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 $100 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 film 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.
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.
