Deadline – Star Wars: The Force Awakens is Slated for a Record-Shattering Opening.
While several outlets have put their chips down on how much money they expect Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is expected to make, most predictions have been made long before the marketing campaign for the film really started (with the advent of Force Friday). How much money is the movie expected to make on opening weekend, according to the latest estimate from Deadline? Take a look inside to find out.
From Deadline:
When Disney revives the long slumbering Star Wars franchise on December 18, The Force Awakens will take the global tentpole opening to a history-making high. How high? Many are already predicting a record $615M worldwide opening, and they have plenty of reason to be confident in that number. The first Star Wars in 1977 gave birth to the blockbuster era of filmmaking — and grosses.
Let me interrupt this quotation for a moment to say that yes, you read that correctly. The current expectation is that the movie will make $615 million on the opening weekend alone. (Domestically and internationally, of course.)
As we come off a summer where Jurassic World set the record with a $524.4M global opening and a record $1B haul in 13 days — the fastest film to cross that mark — experts believe the seventh Star Wars film, a long-anticipated sequel to 1983’s Return Of The Jedi, will surpass the dinosaurs’ feat and recoup its estimated $200M production cost in historic time.
In a digital world where screen counts can be increased at a last moment’s notice to meet theater demand of walk-up business, a record opening of $300M stateside and $315M abroad is possible for The Force Awakens. Insiders say that in any given 20-plex in December, The Force Awakens will be on at minimum 10 screens. Like Jurassic World‘s success this summer, the key driving force to The Force Awakens remains its multi-generational appeal. Disney has smartly planted the film in the year-end holiday corridor when families head to the cinema in bulk. The expectation is that The Force Awakens will play in north of 4,000 theaters on at least 10,000 U.S. screens stateside and in every overseas territory. All except for China, which has a blackout period on Hollywood films during December. Both Furious 7 and Jurassic World played respectively on giant global screen counts of 14,687 and 23,886 in their first frames, with the latter including China.
The talk about The Force Awakens being expected to play in roughly half of the screens at any given theater in December shouldn’t be too surprising given the recent announcement that movie is going to be the only thing playing on all IMAX screens for a whole month. If the movie were to make $615 million on its opening weekend, the movie would be well on its way to be the fastest-grossing film to make $1 billion, or even $2 billion. That being said, I would raise concerns for this prediction being too optimistic. After all, while Disney’s other huge release this year – Avengers: Age Of Ultron – brought in an impressive $1.4 billion, said figure fell below similarly optimistic estimates that the movie would rake in $1.5-2 billion and make more money than The Force Awakens. (Somehow, I doubt that Disney’s accountants are losing sleep over that.) The marketing campaign for The Force Awakens has been surprisingly sluggish in the past two months, with Disney choosing not to release footage of the movie at either the San Diego Comic Con or Disney D23. The movie also does not yet have an official synopsis, an official poster, or a full trailer for it with less than four months until release. This is a particularly sore note, considering that in spite of the high anticipation for the movie from fans, there are still portions of the general audience that don’t even know that another Star Wars movie is coming out period, let alone this year.
That’s not to say that The Force Awakens does not have its own advantages with its release. Even a more conservative estimate – such as imagining that the domestic opening weekend would merely make over $200 million – would still be historic, and could possibly beat out this year’s Jurassic World for the biggest domestic opening weekend of all time. As mentioned above, this movie is going to be played in a ton of theaters for the first four weeks or so. The movie is opening in at least fifty-six countries, with an almost-completely-unified release throughout the world (opening in fifty-one of these countries between December 15, 16, 17, and 18). Five regions are exempt from opening in this week, including China, the biggest box office after the United States – but even then, piracy of the film as a whole should be deterred from the release plan. (Avatar, the highest-grossing movie ever made, also opened with a similar strategy.) The movie also has the advantage of being released right before Christmas and New Year’s, holidays which are good for attendance of major motion pictures well – and being set on weekends only sweetens the deal. The movie’s biggest advantage is being released in a timeframe where it has little major competition for six to eight straight weekends, where it should comfortably sit on the high end of the Top Five for a while.
More than a year ago, a fellow editor on this site predicted that the movie will be the first to make $3 billion. While many of us thought that such a prediction was overtly-optimistic at the time, with a prediction like a $615 million worldwide release, it seems as though there is a very real chance that the movie could eventually make that much cash before it leaves theaters. I certainly believe that it can reach the $2 billion mark faster than Avatar did.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
Of course, I’d be more confident in the movie making a ton of money if they’d release a damn TV Spot already…
They’re really setting themselves up for failure.
At this point I can’t see how Disney can win… Minions, avengers 2, and Jurassic World all made over a billion dollars, and TFA will have to do near Titanic-sized numbers to be the #1 of the year. No pressure.
Companies have pie in the sky expectations which lead to disappointments. I think TFA will rock and will do great, but I temper my expectations.
No need to temper expectations. This movie’s making more than $3 billion.
Are you guys kidding me? A TV spot? It’s 4 months from release. Trust me, you’ll see one come late October and continue on into Dec 18, but you won’t see squat before that. Just calm down. You think they don’t know what they’re doing? Have you seen the new Target ad for Force Friday, and the response to it? Do you realize the trailers online and the articles get huge response from multitudes of people already? Disney isn’t stupid. The marketing machine will be strong with this one.
Seriously. Trying to imply that not releasing a TV spot now to please Star Wars nerds is somehow going to affect box office numbers is laughable.
Yeah even Korea got a TV trailer spot.
I think it would be hilarious if with everything being built up about this movie if it turns out to be like another Phantom Menace! Too much merch, over-inflated anticipation and bam! A Jar-Jar Binks related disaster!
I have no idea why the Clone Wars had so many Jar Jar moments, but that’s been a long time now. I can’t see JJ doing something that awful haha.
just with what we’ve seen its already better lol
Star Wars was already a merchandise-laden franchise you know? Besides, putting a negative expectation for the movie is like saying that a small child can destroy Chuck Norris.
Yeah I don’t get this mentality of releasing the full trailer on Oct. 2nd or whatever the rumor is. It’s not a good strategy. Sure everyone is hyped for this movie but they need to start pushing come Force Friday. I think that could be the day of the trailer but if these rumors are to be believed then unfortunately no. I’m sure this movie will make over a billion dollars. No question. Two billion? Not sure but if any movie this year could, it would be this one. Also factor in that it’ll only be in theaters for this “year” for half a month and then the beginning of next year. This is gonna be massive. The only film that could compete IMO is Batman V Superman and only time will tell on that one.
I don’t think Batman v. Superman is going to be anywhere close.
I agree TFA will make $3B WW
I really hope this movie blows doors down. Opening weekend is assured regardless of quality, but the world-wide total will depend on quality. I think TFA will make $1.2 Billion if its bad, $2 billion if its just good, and $3 Billion if its great.
Let’s be a little cautious about these predictions now: http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/08/27/box-office-star-wars-the-force-awakens-is-being-set-up-to-fail/
That article makes a strong point, though let’s be honest, The Phantom Menace didn’t perform as much as expected because it sucked as a movie.
TFA may not have an opening as big as $300mil, but it will have stronger legs than TPM due to, you know, being a better movie (that people actually want to see).
It still reached over $1 billion worldwide overall (after the 3D release of it). The OT was re-released in theaters a couple of times and still not any of the OT movies made over that (especially before accounting for inflation).
And not many people had home video either during the release of the OT in theaters since it wasn’t around during those times (hence why there were many theatrical re-releases during the late 70’s/early 80’s).
Inflation isn’t the only thing to take into account. There were also far fewer theaters and screens, and releasing a movie took a lot more effort since the distributor actually had to print and ship film at great expense, which then had to last for a ridiculous number of showings since the films would play for months and months. I remember waiting in a long line for ESB in 1980 well after its release date. That just doesn’t happen anymore. Then factor in the increased population, which has nearly doubled since the release of the original Star Wars. There are now far more Star Wars fans than ever before (especially if you include the casual ones who will definitely see TFA, let alone the die-hards who will make repeat visits to the theater), and they have easier access to the movie than ever before. So comparing the OT releases isn’t really comparing apples to apples. The world was very different then.
Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Wars&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop#Box_office_performance
Also, it has been widely documented that people went to go see TPM multiple times so I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about when you’re stating “performing much as expected”. The point of this article is not to consider this movie to be a failure if it doesn’t reach a certain figure money-wise. That’s it.
Adjusted for inflation, The Phantom Menace has made over $700 million in the US alone. In other words, this one’s making more than $3 billion world-wide.
I’d be very happy if it beats that lousy Avatar movie.
Scoosh!
Well, there is a first for everything. Records are made to be broken.
Never tell me the odds.
I just hope it’s actually a well made movie with a good story and acting.
I don’t think so.
Please upload a video on the day of release for the Force Awakens, make sure the camera is on as you give all of your reasons that the movie was not to your standard, where the film makers failed and what could be done better.
Seriously? This is Star Wars, basically everyone has an obligation to see these movies. I like that they have been holding back details, it heightens the anticipation.
I never like to make definite statement, but this film will make 3 billion. Anyone who isn’t going to see this film is a hipster of the highest degree.
Or they just don’t care about Star Wars.
I know lots of people that won’t be going to see this movie and they’re not hipsters they just don’t care about it.
Bite your tongue……BUT search your feelings we know it to be true…unfortunately.
Nothing unfortunate about it.
This movie will make biggest of all time bucks of busterblock ever before, more than a avatar movie seen in long long time.
While I want TFA to do well, all I really care is that we get a good film.
And, if it is good and satisfies the general audience, I suspect it is Episode VIII that has better chance of breaking all records. Because then everyone will be aboard the hype train, not just hard core fans.
Hmmmm … it doesn’t usually work like that …. sequels tend to make less than their predecessors (when these are MAJOR box-office hits). E.g.: TESB made less than ANH, AOTC made less than TPM, Age of Ultron made less than Avengers, The Lost World made less than Jurassic Park, Temple of Doom made less than Raiders, etc … the list goes on.
Plaegus confirmed
If it’s remotely good I know I will be seeing it easily 5 times before it leaves the cinema. If it’s a genuinely good Star Wars film it will do incredibly well.
WELL, number estimates aside, let’s just wait and see if TFA will be an actually “good” movie…
Entertainment weekly also predicted 3 billion way back when. They only had one stipulation. It had to be good.
3 billion? They should change the title to “The Money Awakens”.
Joking aside, just goes to show how dear Star Wars is to everyone.
Cam someone tell Disney that there are tons of people who still don’t know the movie is coming less than a month away? I want TFA to do amazing numbers, so of course I worry. :’)
A MONTH? I meant four. I blame autocorrect.
People don’t need to know about Star Wars 4 months in advance. You’re just being eager.
I don’t get the paranoia over the fact they haven’t done a ton of marketing yet. It’s not like cinema tickets are on sale this far in advance and that sales are really low. Does it matter when they start hyping this? Just takes one cool ass trailer on tv a day before release and kerr-ching!
There’s a lot of misplaced (or out right trolling) “concern” over this film. Too many people are far too precious over it. Hey, we all are, I am too, but let’s chill. This is one of the biggest (probably the biggest?) media/entertainment companies in the world. I somehow do not think that their biggest franchise purchase, which they expect to make billions from, is going to be handled poorly.
If anything they’re handling it with the kind of respect it deserves. If Star Wars was in lesser hands, the likes of which released that ungodly bad spoiler-iffic trailer for Terminator Genysis, we’d pretty much know what the last scene looked, like, and everything that happened to lead up to it by now, we’d have heard half of the funniest lines and seen a clip from every single action scene, ruining the set ups far in advance. I LOVE that we know so little, yet know enough to know to get hyped, as this is looking in mighty fine hands!
Everyone needs to chill. We’re all going to see it, what else do you need to see? NOT ONE SINGLE STAR WARS FAN IS GOING TO MISS THIS IN THE CINEMAS UNLESS THEY DIE BEFORE RELEASE! Anyone claiming that: “nah, Boyega ruins Star Wars”, or “NOPE that one thing that I will focus all my misplaced hatred on will ruin Star Wars forevermore so NO I will NOT see it!”… those people are idiots/liars/crazy.
4 months away. The film is 4 months away. Either a short amount of time or a hell of a long time to wait in anticipation. I like these small snippets every few weeks that keeps us engaged. Some small new details, some new clips like the Instagram teaser. I expect it to be very likely that a full length teaser will land on Force Friday or close either side of it. There’s no need for them to spunk their load so far in advance and ruin all the anticipation we all have for this film now. Calm down everyone.
(Sorry I went on a bit of a rant, most of this comment isn’t aimed at you, but just the people who mirror similar feelings to you. People desperate to know more, to the point they start hating on JJ/Disney/Lucasfilm completely unfairly and unnecessarily so.)
Why should it’s overall box office performance bother you?? It just means the rich get richer. Yes, i want this movie to be good and if it is no doubt i will probably see it a few times at the flicks, but honestly i couldn’t give two hoots how it does at the box office. Maybe if the corporation were to give some of the profits to good causes, for example the imagration disaster were seeing on a daily basis in the mediterranean, were people who are fleeing there homes from all sort of horrors, are being dehumanised to statistics and numbers, then yeah it would be great to see it break 3 billion.
My thoughts exactly
They will need a scrooge mcduck safe for all the money.
uhh, every first installment in the star wars trilogies got a high grossing
Obviously, my hope is that it shatters all records, but I’m not going to predict anything until I see a full theatrical trailer and get a sense of the acting and tone of the film. So far, I like what I’ve seen.
The first Star Wars was a low budget movie that only a couple people actually believed in, before it ended up striking a chord with audiences and becoming a phenomenon. Pretty much the exact opposite of what this situation is. All this BIG talk about money is great, but people are fickle- and they love to pull down what they build up.
I am cautiously optimistic that this will be a great film. Disney can count the ticket stubs and run the numbers- as long as there is enough revenue and interest to continue making good films in this series for fans to enjoy into the foreseeable future, than I’ll be a happy guy. May the force be with all of us on December 18th!
I don’t really care if it breaks any records or makes 3 billion dollars. I just want a movie that has an exciting, complex, and fun story.
“More than a year ago, a fellow editor on this site predicted that the movie will be the first to make $3 billion.”
I’m confident it will.
I’m already saving up my money to watch this film a few dozen times. It’ll be the cultural event of the decade!
I hope, if true, people will accept Han’s death in the film, because it gives us a sense of emotion and heartbreak that JJ is trying to add to the story. If you don’t want these films to be about the newbies and still about the oldies, TOO BAD. Deal with it. Besides, it’s better than Luke Skywalker killing Han Solo.
Banking on the average moviegoer wanting to go see a movie they know nothing about just because of the star wars name is not a good plan. It is a visually stunning movie for sure, but it is starting to feel flat like the PT
We’ve not even heard any characters besides Snoke (?) and Han actually deliver any lines. We’ve seen relatively nothing. It already visually pisses all over TPM and has more excitement than the prequels put together ever had. It is shot better and it has a great writer in Kasdan intrinsically involved in the script. The guy that gave us Empire and RoTJ. The guy who said “Jar Jar is the key to all of this” is NOT involved (at this point in time nothing but a good thing, I <3 early career Lucas and for giving us this Universe but he lost it).
I think you're writing this off a bit to soon.
At least it should breake Jurassic World. But considering TFA opening winter instead of summer, I doubt it.
I really love the casting of the movie , but there are no Chris Pratt popular actor in it.After all this is seventh SW.
My guess is that regardless of how it does at the box office, TFA has already generated more revenue in merchandising licenses than what it cost to make the movie.
This prediction is rubbish, it completely ignores the fact that it’s opening in December which no American domestic box office has ever crossed the 100 Mil mark in its opening weekend. I believe it will break that record but won’t cone close to Jurassic world numbers. If I am wrong it will be very unusual.
Who gives a F@#k how much money it makes, I just want to go see it 🙂
No doubt.
I would love to see this movie knock Titanic and even Avatar off the top spots, even if just to see if Cameron will continue the tradition of putting an ad in Variety.
If any movie has a chance of doing this, TFA is it. Of course it is sci-fi/fantasy so it’s not going to appeal to everyone but then so was Avatar.
It may not be the biggest movie of 2015 purely due to the late release date but I think all other records are fair game to be broken.
The only things that could hamper the success of this movie are if it turns out to be a disaster or there are still just too many people hurting and sceptical after TPM or people are turned off by having Disney running the show and no involvement from Lucas.
I hope people can forget the past and give this movie a chance and even more, that JJ delivers, but in the end, whatever the final numbers, I just want this film to give me some of the same sense of wonder that I’ve been waiting for since I stood in line to see ROTJ as a 7 year old back in 83.
It will do huge business on opening weekend, but whether or not it’s 600 million or not does not really matter because I think it will have pretty long legs.
I predict it will beat Age of Ultron to 2 billion, but it won’t get to 3.
But let’s get that trailer and poster out and TV spots rolling!
Well, I was personally planning on seeing TFA enough times to throw a billion or so dollars its way, but now that I’ve lost $3.2 billion this past Monday with the stock market crash in China, I may only see it once.
I have an awful suspicion that TFA might fall flat.
I’m starting to believe that the title ‘the force awakens’ has less to do with the films plot and more to do with Disney’s expectation for the franchise.
A lot of people in the normal world don’t seem to know its coming..
I forgot the neckbeards know better than the Disney Marketing Execs lol!
There is little doubt that The Force Awakens is going to do ridiculous business. Frankly, anyone suggesting otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. December is the new summer, has been for a long time now. And this Christmas we’re getting a new Star Wars, with the original cast no less, and there is no other major tentpole film slated for release that will compete with it.z
Of course it’s going to shatter records. Just wait until Force Friday hits and Star Wars will be everywhere.
Also Forbes knows box office about as good as they know climate change. Srsly lol.
After Star Wars and Jaws, Summer was the new December!
70 million views in 9 months for the first teaser trailer…60 mil in 4 months for the second teaser trailer….yeah, this movie will do just fine at the BO.
Yeah no. Disney killed Mara jade and the solo twins. Gonna wait for the cam of this one. Probably come out the same weekend too.
It would be shame if TFA wont break Jurassic World record. JW was sach a overated movie.
Colin Torrevow overrated director.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHqOrbsgNXc
The complaints here about the trailer release schedule are hilarious. Are people’s memories so short, or is it just that most of you are too young to remember the prequel releases? All three of those movies had a teaser in November (AotC had three), a bit over six months before the films’ release. The full trailer didn’t come out until March, again for all three movies. That’s less than three months until release, and closer to two months. An early-mid October release of a full trailer would be right in line with that strategy, and if they release anything sooner than that, it would actually be unusual. That’s not to say that they won’t; maybe they will. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned, and the teasers we’ve gotten have been earlier than the prequel equivalents. But complaints that Disney/Lucasfilm isn’t handling the marketing right because a full trailer isn’t here yet are laughably off base. Same with TV spots. Those didn’t start until much closer to release, either, for any of the Star Wars films, and that Korean spot is an oddity.
You’ve never heard of The Force Awakens? It’s the movie that made the Tres Commas Run in less than 12 days.
since when do fans care about how much a movie makes? i am constantly amazed at what SW fans will argue about. Star Wars was brought up in a Phantasm post the other day and the fights started right away in the comments…when did SW become this? i don’t remember all the commotion the first time around…:/
And the dino flick and Age of Ultron both SUCKED balls!Yet was awarded with extreme profits. Sickening. If SW doesn’t crush them, well it deserves to be a en Epic failure. However, I do not expect it to fail. Why?
Answer: Because the Force is strong in this one
Avatar was shit
Jar Jar Binks was an annoying, useless character. Lets hope these new Star Wars movies are more on a high school or grown adult level. My other concern is that the audience will now be overwhelmed with simply too many new characters to keep track of and too much sith & jedi history to understand.