‘The Force Awakens’ predicted to blow up Global Box-Office
By Joe Prescott
As is obvious, ‘The Force Awakens’ is going to do rather well across the world. The long awaited continuation of the beloved space opera is getting a lot of attention currently from its recent trailer, viewed a Hutt-sized 88 million times in 24 hours, and the Anthology series announcements are getting a good buzz. The money generated by the series was always going to be in the higher ranges, and Wall Street analysts have been offering their predictions on global revenue.
The most recent number comes from Citi, whose analysts have given a worldwide box-office estimate at $1.75 billion. Previous numbers have come from Credit Suisse at $1.2 billion, Cowan & Co. at the same $1.2 and FBR Capital Markets predicting $700 million domestically and $1 billion overseas. Other estimations are reaching even higher than $2 billion and Entertainment Weekly estimated a Death Star-sized $3 billion! All of these numbers remain predictions presently, but coming from accredited Wall Street analysts these numbers may be the best estimates so far. It can only ever increase as long as marketing and excitement builds as we approach December 18th.
Currently, the six Star Wars movies including re-releases have brought in $4.5 billion, and the highest grossing episode of the Saga is ‘The Phantom Menace‘ with a worldwide taking of just over $1 billion. This remains only number 17 on the list of highest grossing movies of all time, the second of the series falling down to number 40 with ‘Revenge of the Sith‘ at $848 million, and James Cameron leading the list with both the top two movies being his own, ‘Titanic’ at number 2 with $2.1 billion and ‘Avatar’ at number 1 with $2.7 billion. Marvel’s ‘The Avengers‘ stands at number 3 on the list, and that may be pushed aside by it’s upcoming sequel ‘Age of Ultron‘ which is currently taking big numbers overseas, so it might be that ‘The Force Awakens‘ has to fight Earth’s Mightiest Heroes off the top spot!
Now it may not just be about money for a lot of us, the pleasure that we get from the Saga is totally worth the admission, and there’s even those who would spend the money just to see the trailer on the big screen. Back in 1999, before the internet was fast enough for decent streaming, people flocked to the movies to buy tickets for ‘A Bug’s Life‘ just to see the ‘Phantom Menace‘ trailer, and the ‘Force Awakens‘ trailer is set to premier with ‘Age of Ultron‘ screenings (certainly a good time for Disney!). So while these numbers may just conjure images of CEO’s cackling like Palpatine it just means that Star Wars popularity shall not wane, and we as the fans can continue to enjoy the Saga for years to come.