Wall Street says Star Wars will make billions, but still won't top the No. 1 all-time blockbuster
LatestA little movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes out in a month, and Wall Street’s box office projections have begun rolling in.
Analysts believe the film is going to make a ton of money—but it still won’t be able to knock Avatar, the all-time champ, from its No. 1 blockbuster spot.
At Guggenheim Partners, Disney analysts Michael Morris and Case Taylor predict the latest Star Wars will gross $2.05 billion globally, with $750 million coming from the U.S. and Canada, and $1.3 billion abroad.
They also predict Disney’s licensing revenue for fiscal 2015 will climb to $2.3 billion, up 14% from the prior year. They do not specify what percentage of that will come from Star Wars, but given the amount of Star Wars merch and tie-ins we’ve already seen, it seems safe to assume it will be substantial.
However, Force is unlikely to appeal to foreign audiences the same way Avatar did, according to Morris and Taylor. That movie brought in more than twice as much in international receipts as it did in domestic receipts, for a whopping total of nearly $2.8 billion.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Benjamin Mogli makes a similar prediction as his Guggenheim counterparts, with a slightly different rationale.
Mogli forecasts Force bringing in slightly more, at $2.2 billion globally. He also said international receipts would hold the film back. But that’s because the dollar has strengthened since Avatar came out. For instance, the Euro is down 24% versus the dollar since then, and the Russian Ruble is down 48%, Mogli said.
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Rob covers business, economics and the environment for Fusion. He previously worked at Business Insider. He grew up in Chicago.