It has been a phenomenal year for blockbuster films, with four movies smashing box office records to take their place in the top ten highest-grossing films of all time.
Meanwhile, Fast and Furious 7 earned $1.5bn, Marvel's the Avengers 2: Age of Ultron took $1.4bn and the animated sensation the Minions raked in $1.2bn.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
So why have these films broken records? Inflation is one reason, as is the burgeoning market for Western blockbusters in China.
But there is also a notable pattern, Keith Simanton, senior film editor at the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB), told the BBC earlier this year.
"We've got sequels and reboots and re-imaginings," he said. "People are going to see 'event' films, and they certainly saw Jurassic World harking back to a franchise that people really loved."
The upcoming new Star Wars film epitomises that sense of nostalgia and could easily smash all this year's records.
Many predict that Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens will comfortably beat the $209 million opening weekend record set by Jurassic World in June, but even then it's unlikely to knock Avatar off the top spot.
"[It] will depend on whether it catches fire in countries like China and Russia, where Star Wars isn't the long-established cultural phenomenon it is in the West," says the Wall street Journal.
Infographic by www.statista.com for TheWeek.co.uk.
-
A Spinal Tap reunion, Thomas Pynchon by way of Paul Thomas Anderson and a harrowing Stephen King adaptation in September moviesthe week recommends This month's new releases include 'Spinal Tap II,' 'One Battle After Another' and 'The Long Walk'
-
'Vampire energy' could be causing your electric bill to riseUnder the Radar Wasted energy could account for up to 10% of home use
-
Crossword: September 10, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Sport on TV guide: Christmas 2022 and New Year listingsSpeed Read Enjoy a feast of sporting action with football, darts, rugby union, racing, NFL and NBA
-
House of the Dragon: what to expect from the Game of Thrones prequelSpeed Read Ten-part series, set 200 years before GoT, will show the incestuous decline of Targaryen
-
One in 20 young Americans identify as trans or non-binarySpeed Read New research suggests that 44% of US adults know someone who is transgender
-
The Turner Prize 2022: a ‘vintage’ shortlist?Speed Read All four artists look towards ‘growth, revival and reinvention’ in their work
-
What’s on TV this Christmas? The best holiday televisionSpeed Read From films and documentaries to musicals for all the family
-
Coco vision: up close to Chanel opticalsSpeed Read Parisian luxury house adds opticals to digital offering
-
Abba returns: how the Swedish supergroup and their ‘Abba-tars’ are taking a chance on a reunionSpeed Read From next May, digital avatars of the foursome will be performing concerts in east London
-
‘Turning down her smut setting’: how Nigella Lawson is cleaning up her recipesSpeed Read Last week, the TV cook announced she was axing the word ‘slut’ from her recipe for Slut Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly
