“Star Wars” box office beats “Titanic”, “Jurassic World”

And that lukewarm reception comes despite Disney making a Disney-sized effort to introduce the “Star Wars” universe to a country full of millions of moviegoers who didn’t grow up with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo – such as putting 500 stormtroopers on the Great Wall.

“By the end of November 2015, we had surpassed our best ever year on record for the number of overseas visitors”. In its first three weeks the movie has now taken in more than US$742 million at North American box offices. Once it opens in China this weekend, The Force Awakens will be well on its way to catching Titanic and Avatar, which are No. 2 and No. 1, respectively.

Meanwhile, the most recent Bond film continuing Ian Fleming’s spy’s big screen legacy has now taken £93.5 million. Globally, “The Force Awakens” stands at $1.5 billion; “Avatar’s” total world-wide gross was $2.8 billion. Though it hasn’t exactly proved to be QT’s biggest launch, it earned $16.2 million this weekend for a $29.7 million total to date.

After five impressive days playing exclusively on 70mm film projectors, The Weinstein Company chose to expand ‘The Hateful Eight’ nationwide ahead of schedule.

Many Christmas Day releases enjoyed healthy staying power thanks to holiday vacations: “Joy“, “The Big Short” and “Concussion” all saw second-weekend grosses dip less than 40%. Matt Damon, for example, earned the coveted No. 1 spot for his role as Bourne, while Scarlett Johansson (Captain America: Civil War) and Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: Apocalypse) ranked high too.

‘Sisters’ and ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip’ each maintained their respective fourth- and fifth-place rankings by only dropping 11% and 10% week-over-week.

The Force Awakens got 2016 off to a sizzling start in Germany as J.J. Abrams’ take on the sci-fi franchise easily won its third weekend in the territory, grossing $10.9 million (€10 million) to bring its total take to around $80 million (€75 million) in the territory. Point Break proved a major, major disaster, an estimated $6.8 million bringing in $22.4 million domestically, and not enough worldwide to come close to earning back its shockingly high $105 million budget. Anomalisa and The Revenant also had some appeal in theaters recently. The stop-motion film about a customer service expert in the throes of an emotional crisis was directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson.