The movie \u2014 relaunching the classic sci-fi franchise \u2014 achieves the milestone Tuesday at the North American box office.<\/p>\n
J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens is celebrating Tuesday by crossing the $300 million mark at the North American box office in only five days, the fastest in movie history.<\/p>\n
The Disney and Lucasfilm release \u2014 rebooting the marquee sci-fi franchise in Jedi-like fashion \u2014 finished Monday with a domestic total of $288.1 million after a $40.1 million Monday, the biggest showing ever for the day. By midday Tuesday, its gross was north of $300 million.<\/p>\n
Force Awakens continues to steal records from Jurassic World, which crossed $300 million in eight days, the previous fastest. (Due to the way box-office numbers are reported, Thursday-night previews are factored into Friday’s haul, hence the countdown doesn’t begin until Friday).<\/p>\n
Box-office observers believe Force Awakens could beat the opening day of The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3, 2012 ($35 million) to score the biggest Tuesday of all time. Either way, it will overtake the entire domestic run of Star Wars: Episode II \u2014 Attack of the Clones ($310.7 million) by the end of the day, not accounting for inflation. Directed by George Lucas, Attack of the Clones was released in May 2002.<\/p>\n
Among the other movies hitting $300 million in quick fashion, it took nine days for The Avengers (2012), 10 days for The Dark Knight (2008) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), 12 days for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), 14 days for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Iron Man 3 (2013) and 15 days for Avatar (2009) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).<\/p>\n
Force Awakens has obliterated a long list of box-office records. Over the weekend, it launched to $248 million domestically and $529 million globally, wresting the crown from Jurassic World, which opened to $208.8 million in North America and $524 million worldwide.<\/p>\n
Abrams’ sequel, set 30 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI \u2014 Return of the Jedi, features a strong female heroine in Rey, a young scavenger played by newcomer Daisy Ridley. Rey and a renegade stormtrooper (John Boyega) band together to challenge a rising evil that includes a new planet-killing laser cannon.<\/p>\n
The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Lupita Nyong’o and Domhnall Gleeson, along with original trilogy stars Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.<\/p>\n
At this rate, there’s no telling how high Force Awakens will ultimately fly in terms of box-office revenue, since films over the year-end holidays can see huge multiples. James Cameron’s Avatar opened to $77 million on the same weekend in 2009 on its way to becoming the top-grossing film of all time with $2.79 billion in global ticket sales, including $760.5 million domestically. And on the weekend before Christmas in 1996, Cameron’s Titanic took in a mere $28.6 million on its way to grossing $2.19 billion worldwide.<\/p>\n
Source: hollywoodreporter.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The movie \u2014 relaunching the classic sci-fi franchise \u2014 achieves the milestone Tuesday at the North American box office. J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens is celebrating Tuesday by crossing the $300 million mark at the North American box office in only five days, the fastest in movie history. ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":37493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4450],"tags":[3441,6401],"class_list":["post-37496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diafora-en","tag-box-office","tag-star-wars-en"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n