The Movie Pass: Hello 2016

As much as Star Wars dominated for a third weekend in a row, it wasn’t all about Episode VII this weekend. In fact, the top twelve grossing films of the weekend grabbed an estimated $204.6 million which is just $4.5 million shy of the all time January Box Office Weekend. That mark was set back in 2009 in which Avatar was putting up numbers many didn’t know at the time would be touched just six years later.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens definitely did its part, grabbing another $88.3 million this weekend putting it’s domestic total at $740.2 million after only 17 days in theaters. That makes it the fastest film to pass $700 million domestically, with the before mentioned Avatar taking 70 days to do the same. At this point in time Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken more than 40 box office records and is already in the top five highest grossing films of all time, with an average Monday being enough to move it to the number four spot. Again… in just 18 days!

Just a quick note, at the time this was written, these are still estimated numbers and some are showing Star Wars in at as much as $91 million. If that ends up being the case it will make this weekend surpass the 2009 record and it will move Star Wars: The Force Awakens even further ahead of projections.

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Outside of the force, Daddy’s Home is doing work still by remaining second at the box office with another $29 million earned this weekend. That’s just a 25% drop, impressive for any comedy of that style, especially during a holiday weekend, and enough to beat out what I thought was the clear second place finisher, The Hateful Eight. In fact, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight finished at $16.2 million during the weekend it expanded nationwide, causing some to wonder if Tarantino’s play in a recent national hot topic had anything to do with that.

Rounding out the top five was Sisters in fourth with $12.6 million and just an 11% drop while Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip earned another $11.8 million on just a 10% drop to stay in the top five. Joy might have been the biggest surprise with a 38% drop pushing it out of the top five. Normally a 38% drop isn’t that bad, but with these other movies dropping less than 15% revenue weekend-over-weekend, that’s not a number which will keep a movie holding screens very long and could also end up impacting it come Oscar nominations.

Next weekend has nothing major to offer that isn’t in theaters already; so expect more domination and records from Star Wars and small drops for these other four top five finishers.

With 2015 now officially wrapped, the total haul for the year has been calculated and it was impressive. As much as it felt like 2015 had less to offer at times, the worldwide numbers surpassed $38 billion earned thanks to the likes of Star Wars, Jurassic World, and Minions. Along with Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron, we saw five movies go over $1 billion worldwide, and with the Chinese market becoming more and more of a player (and not even seeing Star Wars as of yet), 2016 could be another stunner for studios across the globe.

Also with the year being wrapped, stay tuned to Project-Nerd on Friday as the staff pulled together their list for the Top 10 Movies of 2015. The list is fun and features a few obvious choices but also has a couple unexpected treats.

Let’s hold off our excitement on this next announcement until we get a better look at what the film will have to offer, but it’s been reported that Jet Li is set to join Vin Diesel in the next XXX sequel. Obviously, if you’re going to make an action movie that doesn’t require much brain activity, let’s pack it with action stars, however XXX may not be Diesel’s best work, and the sequel (which starred Ice Cube) was an absolute disaster. Let’s hope they can do what John Wick did and just revive the good ole action fun of the 90’s without treating audiences like idiots.

And finally, we couldn’t fail to mention that actor Jason Wingreen, best known to Star Wars fans as the voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, and to classic television fans for his role as Harry the bartender in All In The Family and Archie Bunker’s Place, has sadly passed away this past weekend. Wingreen was 95.

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