Thanks to a major boost from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the North American box office passed $11 billion on Tuesday — the first time ever to reach the mark in a record-setting year, according to Rentrak tracking service.
The Force Awakens added significantly to the final haul earning around $600 million currently in North America, according to Rentrak estimates.
But it was the last in string of 2015 box office hits which made up the record total, which Rentrak estimates will be at $11.1 billion at the year end.
"Star Wars was huge, but it's been an amazing movie year," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst for Rentrak. "There were records broken every month of the year, starting in January 2015 with American Sniper and then Fifty Shades of Grey and so on,"
The $11 billion mark beats the previous record of $10.9 billion in 2013 and was a significant increase over 2014's disappointing mark of $10.4 billion.
Some factors in the record:
- 2015 was the year we saw the opening weekend record broken twice, starting with Jurassic World which opened in June to $208.8 million (ending $652 million total). This was squashed with The Force Awakens with its December opening weekend of $248 million.
- Clint Eastwood's American Sniper set the tone for the year posting the biggest January wide release debut ever with $89.3 million (total box office of $350 million).
- Fifty Shades of Grey posted the biggest February opening ever with $85.2 million (total box office of $166.2 million).
- Furious 7 led to the biggest April opening weekend ever with $147.2 million (total box office of $353 million).
- Avengers: Age of Ultron kicked off the summer with a $191.3 million debut in May, making it one of the top five opening weekends of all time.
Jeff Bock, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations, says despite optimistic predictions going into 2015, there was some doubt that the box office record would be broken during the lean months of September and October. Films languished financially with a notable exception of Matt Damon's role in The Martian which brought in $224 million total.
"And it wasn't a foregone conclusion that Star Wars was going to be the box office beast everyone hoped it would be," says Bock.
Bock also noted that ticket prices continued to rise in 2015, along with premiums such as IMAX screens and 3-D.
"This is the biggest box office on record, but I doubt 2015 will mark the highest admission numbers on record. That's something to keep in mind," says Bock. "But this proves people are willing to pay a premium price for those big blockbusters. We'll see how long that lasts."
