Weekend Box Office: Star Wars Wins Again, Revenant Roars
by EG
It's been in theaters for four weekends now, but Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens shows little sign of weakening ticket sales. For the fourth week in a row, The Force Awakens was the highest-grossing film of the weekend, although one of the week's new movies came close to taking the top spot.
The Force Awakens took in another $41 million this weekend. It is now the highest-grossing film ever in the United States, and it just surpassed Jurassic World to become the third highest-grossing film of all time globally.
The biggest news of the weekend, however, was the performance of The Revenant, the Western adventure starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film earned $38 million, which was nearly twice what observers had predicted, and it came within a hair's breadth of dethroning Star Wars.
The week's other new film, The Forest, took fourth place. Third place went to Will Ferrell's Daddy's Home, and the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Sisters rounded out the top five.
Last week's second place film, Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, faded significantly this week and barely edged out hold-over The Big Short for sixth place.