'Furious 7' and 'Jurassic World' Push Universal to Best Year Worldwide
Universal Studios has announced this year has set a personal-best for a single year at the box office with $3.82 billion, surpassing its previous best of $3.69 billion in 2013.
Those numbers are an incredible feat for the studio with it still only being June, with its previous record set at the end of 2013. Of course, this achievement lays squarely at the feet of two huge box office successes — Furious 7 and Jurassic World. The dinosaur blockbuster continues to break records after its second week of release and will likely continue its rich vein of form heading into its third week. Furious 7 was released back in April and became the fourth-biggest worldwide grosser in history taking $1.5 billion. Other Universal releases have also played their part in the studios stellar year. Fifty Shades of Grey grossed nearly $70 million worldwide, and comedy sequel, Pitch Perfect 2, took a handsome $272 million.
Universal leads the way in market share and has left other studios behind in box office takings. The studio set industry box office records as the the fastest to $1 billion at the domestic box office, $2 billion overseas and $3 billion worldwide. The four movies previously mentioned movies all debuted at number one domestically and managed a combined 9 weeks at the top.
"This has been a fantastic year for our studio," said Jeff Shell, Chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment. "We've had the privilege of releasing some of the most highly anticipated movies of 2015. Together with my partners Ron Meyer and Donna Langley, I'm incredibly proud to lead a team of people at Universal who are truly the best in the business."
Chairman of Universal Pictures, Langley said, "We are fortunate to be in business with some of the most talented filmmakers in the industry. Together with our Universal team, we're thrilled to celebrate a slate of fantastic films that audiences have embraced all over the globe."
