Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Force Awakens officially ended its theater run on Thursday, June 2 with a domestic total gross of $936,662,225. Unadjusted for inflation, that makes it the highest earning Star Wars film: In second place is The Phantom Menace with $431,088,295 domestic.
The Force Awakens will cross $900M domestic at the box office today, and $2B worldwide tomorrow, Disney announced.
In related news, Lionsgate said today that Star Wars is partially at fault for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2‘s less-than-predicted performance, lessening the November movie’s numbers by “somewhere between $50M and $100M.” Don’t blame the players, blame the game? And maybe even the ever-more-eye-rolling trend of splitting adaptions into two parts… I saw both Mockingjays in the theater, but I gotta tell you, by the second movie I was pretty much already over it.
→ The sound we hear in The Force Awakens when Kylo Ren uses the Force has an unexpected source: A purring cat, Dave Acord tells Nerdist. Matthew Wood also talks about recording Ren’s mask dialogue with Adam Driver. (Acord also reveals there’s a sound from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the mix.) At The Daily Dot, Wood gets into even more detail about the archival sounds used in the new film, as well as the ADR process and other details.
→ I’ve never been particularly fond of the autograph racket that goes on in this fandom, but I gotta say, the latest controversy – involving Daisy Ridley – really takes the cake.
The Force Awakens won four categories at the Visual Effects Society Awards, including outstanding VFX in a photoreal feature. On that note, there’s a new Roger Guyett interview over at Deadline.
→ Bryan Young talked to Matthew Wood and David Acord about how BB-8 got his voice for How Stuff Works.
→ The Force Awakens is likely to pass $900M domestically and $2B globally this coming weekend, Scott Mendelson reports.
→ Your moment of extremely relevant zen: An adorable puppy finds a home.
Supreme Leader Snoke’s appearance in The Force Awakens was inspired by the Lincoln Memorial and he is indeed a hologram, Roger Guyett and Pat Tubach confirm to Cinemablend. (Wait, people actually thought he… Wasn’t a hologram? Oh, internet.) And here are a few more new interviews with Guyett, Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould. The two half-hour interviews are a must-listen.
→ Industrial Light & Magic received the Genius Award at last night’s Critics Choice Awards, and BB-8 made an appearance during John Knoll’s acceptance speech.
→ The Force Awakens has passed $1B internationally, even as it fell to #3 domestically for the weekend.
→ The Hollywood Reporter takes a look at the Altus Sports Institute, which Bad Robot turned to to help get – and keep – the cast of
J.J. Abrams discusses The Force Awakens with The Hollywood Reporter, including the criticisms that the film is too similar to A New Hope, and why it was important “to go backwards to go forwards.”
Today, Abrams was at TCA for Hulu’s 11.22.63, where he told Entertainment Weekly not to expect an extended edition of The Force Awakens and addressed the lack of Rey toys.
→ At Studio Daily, ILM VFX Supervisor Roger Guyett talks about the film’s visual effects, including the Falcon on Jakku.
→ The Force Awakens has opened strong in China with a record $33M Saturday opening. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., there’s some real box office competition this weekend thanks to The Revenant. Who wins? Either way, Domhnall Gleeson.
→ Speaking of actors, The Force Awakens has let Harrison Ford reclaim the title of highest grossing actor of all time from fellow Star Wars alumni Samuel L. Jackson.
→ Business Insider profiles Joonas Suotamo, who doubled for Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca.
→ Award watch: John Boyega is a nominee for the BAFTA’s Rising Star award. TFA itself is up for BAFTAs in production design, sound, music and visual effects. The film is also up for a Costume Designers Guild Award.
We knew it was coming, and now it’s nearly official: At some point today, The Force Awakens outearned James Cameron’s Avatar as the high-grossing film in North America. (Official numbers will come tomorrow, but StarWars.com is already thanking fans.)
Avatar made $760.5 million domestically in 2009, but it still remains the global earning champ. The Force Awakens is currently in 4th place there, and while it has an excellent chance of beating out Jurassic World for third, it’ll need to top both Titanic and Avatar to make it to #1.
The Force Awakens has broken yet more records with an $88.3 million domestic haul for New Year’s weekend, bringing the totals to $740.3M domestic and $1.51 billion globally.
This week it notably beat Avatar as the fastest film to make it to $700M – it took 16 days, as opposed to Avatar‘s 72. The James Cameron film made $760.8M domestic in 2009, and it gets to hang on to being the top-grossing film of all time in North America for (maybe) a day or two. The Force Awakens is currently #6 in all time worldwide grosses.
The Force Awakens just isn’t slowing down. It took in $153.5 million domestically over Christmas weekend, and worldwide it’s past a billon dollars – the fastest film to ever do so. On Friday, it doubled the previous Christmas Day record, leaving the 2009 Sherlock Holmes in the dust.
For the full list of broken records – at the moment – head over to Entertainment Weekly.
The Force Awakens has now become the fastest movie to pass the $300 million mark domestically, in addition to breaking records for Monday and Tuesday. It’s earned a total $324M in North America, and $689.4M worldwide through Tuesday. Is any record safe? The film is expected to handily win a second weekend, but it still has a ways to go to beat Avatar as the highest grossing film of all-time. Still, if anyone can do it…
The numbers are in, and The Force Awakens made an astounding $529 million worldwide this weekend, $248 million of it domestically. That takes it past both Jurassic World’s key opening weekend records.
Jurassic World producer Frank Marshall (and husband of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy) tweeted the traditional congratulation ad, seen at right. Meanwhile the film also continued to rule on social media.
→ Want the nitty-gritty of what the actors made in The Force Awakens? Variety has a report, but beware of spoilers.
→ Video: Phil Tippett and his team on recreating the Millennium Falcon’s Dejarik holochess game.
→ The Force Awakens is among the ten films making the shortlist for the visual effects Oscar. Five will make the cut. Also on the shortlist are Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Ex Machina, The Martian, The Revenant, Tomorrowland and The Walk.
→ Finn’s ID number is a particularly easy-to-miss Easter egg. Also on Buzzfeed: Finn/Poe shippers. Hey, at least it’s not Reylo.
→ Matt Patches did it. He stayed spoiler-free for The Force Awakens for three whole years. I think he’s nuts, but respect.
→ Also: Mike Ryan on the redemption of Han Solo, Hasbro’s first look at Leia and Maz Kanata figures in a new motion poster, and how will The Force Awakens influence fashion?