Out of the eight biggest movies in history, five opened in December, including three of the four biggest movies ever domestically. To boot, out of those five, three of them either temporarily or currently stand as the biggest movies ever in North America. December is a fantastic launchpad for big movies, as the extended holidays at the end of the year give audiences plenty of time to catch up on big releases. Meanwhile, the typical lack of compelling new releases in January and February means that an Avatar or Titanic can keep earning at the box office well into the new year.
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Given this reality, it’s surprising to consider how long it took for a motion picture to open at $100+ million in December. In the 2000s, months like May, November, and July housed several features that cracked nine digits in their first three days of release. However, it’s quite shocking, with the benefit of hindsight, how long it took for December to house a $100+ million opener.
What Was The First December Movie To Open to $100+ Million?
In May 2002, Spider-Man became the first movie in history to exceed $100+ million on its domestic opening weekend. It was a game-changing bow, but it wouldn’t remain the only $100+ million earner for long. For years December releases couldn’t seem to exceed $84 million (the opening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2012). Holiday season releases make more of their money over longer box office runs rather than the more compact runs of summer blockbusters; Avatar, for example, opened to $77 million on December 18, 2009, and only dipped 2% in its second weekend.
Plus, many December titles, at least in the 2000s, opened on Wednesdays (such as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), ensuring that demand was less once their opening weekends rolled around. Thus it took a long time for a December release to open to $100+ million.. .but boy did a movie blow down the doors once it did!
Star Wars: The Force Awakens made history on December 18, 2015, as the first movie to make $100+ million from just one day of domestic business. By the time Sunday rolled around, The Force Awakens had obliterated The Hobbit’s domestic December opening weekend record. In fact, its $247 million debut was nearly three times what The Hobbit opened to three years earlier. The Force Awakens would also score a second-weekend gross of $149.2 million, a sum that would’ve been an opening weekend record all on its own! 13 years after Spider-Man crossed the $100 million opening mark, The Force Awakens set another domestic debut gold standard, this time also shattering the norms for how big December movies could bow.
RELATED: The Biggest Movies Ever At the Domestic Box Office That Never Earned A Billion Globally
December Openings in a Post-Force Awakens World
Disney began releasing Star Wars movies nearly ever December for the rest of the 2010s, thus ensuring that Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker all debuted to $100+ million before the decade was done. However, even with this new norm, there were still examples of December blockbusters not needing $100+ million openings to be big hits. In December of 2018, Aquaman became the only 2018 movie to gross over $275+ million worldwide but not open to $70+ million domestically. It was possible now for December movies to open to $100+ million… even if it wasn’t through the frontloaded success of an opening weekend.
In the 2020s, two other December blockbusters have opened to $100+ million domestically: Spider-Man: No Way Home opened to $260 million, dethroning The Force Awakens for the biggest December domestic weekend. The following year, Avatar: The Way of Water opened to $134.1 million, a number that would’ve been unthinkable for a December tentpole just a decade earlier. While no December 2024 releases currently look poised to crack the nine-digit mark, December 2025 will almost certainly produce another feature in this trend with Avatar: Fire and Ash. When James Cameron, master of the December blockbuster, comes around, hefty opening weekends are surely in store.
Interestingly, these $100+ million openers haven’t seen a dilution in the long-term legs of these blockbusters. While not as leggy as Titanic or the first Avatar, The Force Awakens, for instance, did just under 3.8 times its domestic opening weekend over its lifetime theatrical run. Spider-Man: No Way Home did a little over 3.1 times its North American opening weekend, a significantly leggier run than usual for a post-2019 Marvel Studios film. Avatar: The Way of Water, meanwhile, did just over 5 times its domestic opening weekend. Compare that to typical summertime movies, which can make as much as half of their lifetime domestic grosses in their opening weekends.
These $100+ million December openers get the best of both worlds. They get opening weekends typically associated with May or July blockbusters…but then get to leg out like a Jumanji movie over December and January. No wonder this has become one of the most coveted places to launch a major motion picture in a given year. It took a shockingly long time for December to house a $100+ million domestic opener. Heck, April produced a $100+ million opener sooner – in April 2015 with Furious 7. However, once December started producing $100+ million opening weekends, they became the kind of bows record books were invented for.
What Holiday Season 2024 films do you see becoming major domestic earners this year?
