Star Wars: The Last Jedi Rings in the New Year with over $1 Billion Worldwide

Not surprisingly, Star Wars: The Last Jedi rang in the New Year at the top of the box office for the third weekend in a row, adding another $52 million to bring its total domestic cume to a galactic $517 million. In the process, the latest Star Wars saga passed Beauty and the Beast to become the highest grossing film of 2017. Of course, there is still plenty of force left in the Jedi tank, and the film is likely to finish its run close to $700 million, making it the third highest of all time behind Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Star Wars: The Last Jedi has already crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide, and should have no problem passing Fate of the Furious and Beauty and the Beast to become the international champ for 2017.

Not to be outdone, Sony's holiday hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle continued to place a solid second, hunting up $50 million in its second weekend for a total of $169 million through twelve days. On a more sour note, Universal's Pitch Perfect 3 and Fox's The Greatest Showman have failed to strike the right note with audiences, with the Anna Kendrick sequel performing well behind its two predecessors and the Hugh Jackman musical gasping for breath in their second weekends. Pitch Perfect 3 brought in just $16.8 million over the weekend, while The Greatest Showman delivered $15.5 million.

On the limited release award season front, Gary Oldman's Darkest Hour, and the Guillermo del Toro directed The Shape of Water appear to be winning the most audience support. Darkest Hour fought its way to $5.5 million on just 949 screens, while The Shape of Water stirred up $3.5 million on 756 screens.

PageBreaks Take: Marvel's Black Panther opens on February 16th, and while there are plenty of wide releases between then and now, it's hard to see any film breaking out in a big way. Look for Star Wars and Jumanji to stay near the top over the next month.

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