The record-breaker

Nearly two months after release, two major milestones for The Force Awakens: it hit $2bn worldwide – only the third film in history to do so after Titanic and Avatar – and $900m (£626m) in the States. The latter feat is the more impressive: $150m more than the next most successful film, Avatar, this crushing performance means this blockbuster is slanted an uncommon 45% towards the US. In contrast, it hasn’t straddled the international landscape quite as domineeringly. Of the top five territories, it’s the No 1 film of all time in the UK ($177.8m), 24th of all time in China ($124.5m), fourth of all time in Germany ($107.9m), not yet in Japan’s top 30 ($87.4m), and just inside France’s top 30 ($87.2m). As we’ve noted in recent weeks, the Japanese result – the country was top territory for all George Lucas’s prequels – must be a source of frustration for Disney executives. But if it raises a question mark over the decision to put nostalgia for the original trilogy at the heart of Episode VII, the glittering US performance dispels it.



The Force Awakens has hit $2bn in 53 days – far quicker than Titanic, which hit the mark only after its 2012 3D re-release. It still lags behind that film dramatically in ticket sales, something that becomes clear if you inflation-boost James Cameron’s film’s 1997 takings to 2015/16 levels, when it would have made over $3bn. With The Force Awakens’ run almost done, Disney can be thoroughly chuffed with a breezy and sharp piece of craftsmanship that, quality-wise, is close to the best of the noughties blockbuster era (not saying much). But once the release hype had dissipated, The Force Awakens lacked the frisson of a blinding cinematic anomaly that marked out Avatar and Titanic, and didn’t have the longevity to match. Over to Rian Johnson for Episode VIII.



The inside story

Watch the Hail, Caesar! trailer Guardian

There’s nothing Hollywood likes better than a Hollywood movie. But how interesting are they to anyone outside the gilded circle? An $11.4m (£7.9m) US debut for the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar!, set during the 50s studio era, says: kind of, maybe. Even uncorrected for inflation, it’s their weakest wide opening, set against the likes of True Grit ($24.8m), Burn After Reading ($19.1m), The Ladykillers ($12.6m) and Intolerable Cruelty ($12.5m). If not quite all MGM’s stars in heaven, Hail, Caesar! has a pretty respectable celebrity flotilla at its disposal – current (Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum), established (George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson) and high-thespian (Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton). But without the publicity zeroing in on any single one, not even Josh Brolin’s studio-fixer protagonist, this lacked a single real marquee draw like an in-the-prime Clooney for Intolerable Cruelty.



The glitzy aura gives it the air of a marquee movie, but the truth is perhaps that these insider Tinseltown finaglings appeal disproportionately to critics and those involved in the industry. The likes of A Star Is Born ($5m/$37.8m adjusted) and The Player ($21.7m/$36.6m adjusted), middling performances at best, show the limits of Hollywood orbiting its own navel; even high points such as Sunset Boulevard ($5m/$49.7m adjusted) and The Artist ($44.6m) aren’t very high. Hail, Caesar! should make more than its dark twin Barton Fink ($10.6m), but much less than the Coens’ US career bests for True Grit ($171.6m) and No Country for Old Men ($74.3m); notably both gruff westerns which would sooner reach for their revolvers than get self-referential. Maybe the material deserved more the Barton Fink indie release treatment than the big-picture hullabaloo the Coens have raised for Hail, Caesar!. That’s showbiz hustle for you.



The Korean blockbuster

Korean films are a regular presence on the global charts, but rarely this high up. The No 3 entry this week is Lee Il-Hyung’s A Violent Prosecutor: its $19.5m (£13.6m) take is the country’s second-highest homegrown opening ever. The local film body actually have the four-day figure as $22m, which brings it even closer to the current top-opener, 2014’s naval epic Admiral: Roaring Currents ($25.7m, but over five days). It’s a fantastic launch for the comedy-thriller about an over-zealous criminal prosecutor who teams up with a chipper conman after he is framed and sent to prison. Salient success factors here? Slick and game heist movie-style marketing, two hot stars in the shape of Hwang Jeong-min (Ode to My Father and Veteran, two of 2015’s biggest local hits) and Kang Dong-won (Kundo, one of 2014’s biggies), and an eagerness to dip into the well of cracked humour about warped policing and jurisprudence standards once plumbed by Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder. It’s a confident start to the new year, beginning this week in Korea, for the local industry, on the rise again after a lull at the turn of the decade. One of the countries that can be relied on to supply a non-stop motorcade of sturdy-looking genre fare, its domestic film share last year was 52% – close to China’s 61%, without any of the dodgy government market-rigging. Six out of 2015’s top 10 were Korean. A Violent Prosecutor is first and very emphatically on the scorecard for 2016.



Beyond Hollywood

With a gaggle of Chinese new-year hits straining at the leash for release today, there was only one non-Hollywood entrant this week: No 1 in France and 10th globally with $8.5m, Les Tuche 2 is director Olivier Baroux’s sequel to his 2011 comedy of manners about a family of dossers from deepest rural France who win the lottery. Which lets them head for Hollywood this time. Maybe they’re the Hail, Caesar! demographic then.



The future

Chinese new-year box office is a three-horse race in 2016. In pole position, judging by early previews, is From Vegas to Macau III, with Chow Yun-fat once again trading on his God of Gamblers cache in a $40m action-comedy featuring Hong Kong’s finest – Andy Lau, Nicky Cheung, Carina Lau – plus, reportedly, one Psy. The last two films did $85m and $157m respectively in the same new year slot, so let’s see how the series’ luck holds up. Then we have The Mermaid, from quirky Hong Kong craftsman Stephen Chow, whose projects (Shaolin Soccer; Kung Fu Hustle; CJ7) have been spaced apart enough to suggest that fastidious maintenance of standards is a priority. His $60m newbie looks to be some kind of eco-fable starring 19-year-old newcomer Lin Yun as a mermaid used in a honeytrap scheme against a business tycoon. Rounding off the trio is the $60m The Monkey King 2, the obligatory dose of Chinese mythology and the sequel to 2014’s second highest-grossing local hit.



Troubled Great Expectations adaptation Fitoor gets its Indian release, with up-and-comer Aditya Roy Kapur in the role of Pip – renamed Noor. But this one’s about the women: Katrina Kaif in the Estella slot and Tabu, a last-minute stand-in, as a Bollywood Miss Havisham. With reported budget issues and reshoots, let’s see if Fitoor hangs together as well as the likes of Haider, 2014’s indie Hamlet rewrite.



Hollywood, meanwhile, starts to shake off the post-Star Wars stupor. Sometime X-Man Deadpool – of the Marvel parish but distributed by Fox – hits the US, UK, Mexico, South Korea and enough first-week major territories to suggest that someone’s investing actual credence in this as a franchise-builder. Probably star Ryan Reynolds, who, pushing 40, is in the last-chance saloon blockbuster-wise. Deadpool’s trademark snark, though, is a natural fit for the man with the most gobshite-iest Twitter feed in LA. And at $50m, this is a superhero snip. Likely approaching that budget-wise is Zoolander 2 – as with the Anchorman series, a sequel to an indifferently performing original ($60.8m worldwide) that grew to cult status and beyond in the intervening years. Starting out nonchalantly in the US, UK plus patches of Latin America and Europe this weekend, if it performs like Anchorman 2 ($173.6m on a $50m budget), director Ben Stiller will be more than happy. And we can brace ourselves for the Dodgeball sequel.



Top 10 global box office, 5-7 February

1. Kung Fu Panda 3, $44m from eight territories. $198.1m cumulative – 65.1% international; 34.9% US

2. The Revenant, $31.1m from 68 territories. $326.1m cum – 54.1% int; 45.9% US

3. (New) A Violent Prosecutor, $19.5m from one territory – 100% int

4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, $13.9m from 42 territories. $2.01bn cum – 54.9% int; 45.1% US

5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, $13.1m from 55 territories. $171.4m cum – 51.2% int; 48.8% US

6. (New) Hail, Caesar!, $11.4m from one territory – 100% US

7. The 5th Wave, $11.4m from 70 territories. $84.2m cum – 69.5% int; 30.5% US

8. Dirty Grandpa, $8.6m from 23 territories. $46.4m cum – 36.6% int; 63.4% US

9. The Hateful Eight, $8.5m from 34 territories. $115.7m cum – 54.5% int; 45.5% US

10. (New) Les Tuche 2, $8.5m from one territory – 100% int



Thanks to Rentrak. This week’s figures are based on estimates; all historical figures unadjusted, unless otherwise stated.

