Internationally Force Awakens brought in $281 million, falling short of Jurassic World's international opening weekend record of $316.1 million, but globally the domestic box office helped propel it to a new worldwide record. With $524.9 million, Force Awakens topped Jurassic World's previous global record by $4.1 million, the difference being the nearly $40 million more Star Wars took in at the domestic box office.
That international opening wasn't short on records either as it included the largest opening weekends of all-time in the UK (4-day), Australia, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Poland (3-day), Denmark (5-day), Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland, Serbia, New Zealand. Second biggest opening weekend in France, Belgium, Israel and Chile. The top grossing territories were the UK ($50.6M), Germany ($27.5M), France ($22.5M), Australia ($19.6M) and Japan ($13.4M).
Key among this opening is the fact it has not yet opened in China, which generated over $99 million for Jurassic World on its opening weekend. However, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this week, Star Wars isn't the known quantity in China it is elsewhere in the world. In fact, it wasn't until June of this year that the first three films in the franchise were first screened in China at the Shanghai international film festival and the Star Wars prequels only grossed a combined $18.7 million upon their 1999, 2002 and 2005 release. Disney has done a huge marketing push in China, but we'll have to wait until the weekend of January 9 to see if it pays off.
