REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SHANGHAI -- Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken box-office records in China, after bringing in 53 million US dollars on Saturday (9/1) and Sunday (10/1) showings, lifting its global total to 1.73 billion US dollars. The film was now the third-highest grossing release, behind Avatar and Titanic. It also passed the record set by James Bond film Skyfall to become the highest grossing movie released in the UK, Financial Times reported.

China was expected to make a hefty contribution to the movie’s final box-office tally. The country was expected to become the world’s largest film market in the next two years and a strong performance by The Force Awakens there will put it in a position to surpass Avatar as the top-grossing movie ever released.

Film market analysts have pointed out that the biggest films have performed similarly in China and the US in recent years. The mainland opening attracted large crowds, many of them aficionados of the series who had first watched pirated copies of earlier films.

“The early eighties was a time in China when people craved contact with the outside world. We were insatiably curious about western culture, and we were stunned after seeing the special effects and the scope of the human imagination.”

Zi Feiyu, independent film critic, said: “The Star Wars series has a group of diehard fans in China, even though the old Star Wars series was never released in China.”

The country’s total box-office take increased by 49 percent in 2015, according to state figures, generating 6.8 billion US dollars in revenues. China is adding an average of 22 screens a day.

With global sales of about 1.7 billion US dollars, The Force Awakens remains behind Avatar, which made 2.8 billion US dollars in 2009.

Ikuti Whatsapp Channel Republika