Boxofficemojo uses detailed analysis of how many theaters show a movie and the amount and timing of showings. They analyse all past movie openings. Boxofficemojo predicts Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which will show on 4,134 theaters in North America) will open this weekend with a record $231,090,000 box office.
Star wars the Force Awakens is predicted to set the global box office opening weekend record with anywhere from $575-650 million worldwide. China will not start showing the Force Awakens until Jan 9, 2016
Working in the film’s favor is the fact it will be playing in over 3,300 3D locations, on a record 392 IMAX screens, on 451 Premium Large Format screens and in 146 D-Box locations. The higher ticket prices for all of these locations along with the swath of positive reviews (just in case you were on the fence) only work to the film’s benefit, especially when it comes to predicting how much it will make per theater.
The $48,855 per theater record set by Jurassic World is probably the most significant number we have to work with. Jurassic World opened in 4,274 theaters and the fact Star Wars is opening in 140 fewer already helps up that average. To break the record Force Awakens will need to average over $50,510 per theater, we’re predicting a $55,899 average for a record-breaking $231 million opening. This number is based on a $95M Friday, $71.2M Saturday (25% drop) and $64.8M Sunday (9% drop). The biggest difficulty, making for what will be the largest margin of error, is just how many screens it will be playing on in each of those theaters and how many times per screen.
Beyond opening weekend, the average multipliers in 2014 and 2015 were 3.15 and 3.01 respectively. For films opening in 4,000+ theaters that drops to 2.91 for 2014 and 2.57 in 2015. However, the average multiplier for the top opening weekends of all-time climbs to 3.24 and if you look at the two films that opened over $200 million, Jurassic World and The Avengers have 3.12 and 3.01 multipliers, which sets something of a baseline. All things considered a 3-3.5 times multiplier seems a safe approximation. This would put the overall domestic gross at $693-808.5 million, which means Avatar’s all-time domestic record of $760.5 million is in some jeopardy.
Sta Wars could be the first movie to earn over $100 million on a single day in North America if Friday is especially good.
SOURCE – Box office mojo
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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