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Welcome to Tuesday, December 23rd, day two of the Twelve Days of Box Office. Today, we’ll be discussing the impressive staying power of last weekend’s new releases, Sisters and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip. What’s that, you say? You’d rather talk about Star Wars instead? I don’t know, are people allowed to discuss Star Wars on the internet? It’s kind of a largely ignored topic.

Yes, it’s only day two and we’re already sick of each other.

Anyway, the number one film in North America as well as everyone else in the world save for South Korea and Thailand (and presumably North Korea) was once again Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That’s likely to be true from now until the release of Kung Fu Panda 3, give or take a few days. Its Tuesday tally of $37.4 million was in fact a new record as “predicted,” edging the prior record holder, The Amazing Spider-Man, by $2.35 million.

A loyal reader pointed out that I jumped the gun in say that The Force Awakens now holds the single day record on five of seven weekdays. The correct answer is four: Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. It actually failed to best Jurassic World on Saturday, earning $68.3 million as opposed to the dinosaur flick’s $69.6 million. For that matter, The Avengers grossed almost $69.6 million as well. So, the producers of The Force Awakens should feel deep shame over the film’s Saturday performance. Their movie has barely even earned $325.4 million domestically. Of course I’m kidding if you’re new here. That’s a splendid average of $65 million a day. It’s an unconscious pace the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Also, thank you to the person who pointed out the mistake.

Yesterday, I mentioned the Avatar pace and how that would impact The Force Awakens. You’re going to hear about this topic in a lot of places since Avatar is the film that Star Wars 7 is chasing to become the biggest of all-time, both domestically and globally. Since North American box office is so predictable as a rule at this time of year, folks are naturally expecting the current blockbuster to perform at roughly the same pace as the one that did under the same calendar configuration in 2009.

Let’s take a step back to discuss what that means. If you’ve been through this a few times, feel free to skip down a couple of paragraphs. You already know the deal. When I mention calendar configuration, it’s important during this time of year. That’s due to the way the holidays themselves impact the overall box office behavior. Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Christmas and New Year’s Day are the key dates.

When the holidays fall on the best days of the week, overall box office increases. This will transpire independent of the quality of the films in release. Conversely, a poor calendar configuration will cause the box office to deflate. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve need to fall on weekdays to avoid box office deflation. That’s because these are anti-holidays with regards to box office. Due to travel and parties, people have less time to attend movies on these days. On the actual holidays, box office rises again.

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