I would like to take this opportunity to annoyingly say, toldja. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was an immense blockbuster, it’s the highest grossing film of all time domestically ($932.5 million), absolutely shattering the previous record held by “Titanic.” But it seemed fairly clear around week five or six in theaters that ‘The Force Awakens’ wasn’t tracking as fast or as high internationally. So yes, ‘The Force Awakens’ made an astounding $2.059 billion, but again, in the middle of its run it became very apparent it would not crack the all-time world records held by “Titanic” and “Avatar” despite many predictions that it would (“Avatar” outpaced it by around $700 million). And to be clear, while ‘The Force Awakens’ is still in theaters, its about to come out on Blu-Ray and DVD and that theatrical run will soon end and there’s not enough juice in the tank to get close to “Titanic” globally.
The reason? International audiences don’t know and love “Star Wars” like North America does and the proof was in the box-office pudding. Blockbusters grosses worldwide tend to be split around 65% international and 35% domestic, at least on average. Meaning, most of the money comes from overseas audiences (in comparison "Avatar" has a whopping 72.7%/27.3% split favoring foreign gross). But for ‘The Force Awakens,’ the foreign/domestic split was much more even at 54.7% of the gross coming from international audiences and 45.3% coming from viewers at home. Will this change? Absolutely. As the ‘Star Wars’ series continues and increases brand awareness overseas, there’s a good bet the series will grow exponentially overseas, but there’s a reason the Chinese Justin Bieber was hired to help increase ‘Star Wars’ awareness in that incredibly-imperative market ("Avatar" made $204 million in 2009 in China whereas ‘The Force Awakens’ tapped out at $125.3 million). Anyhow, that’s my main digression and roundabout way to say the Blu-Ray is on its way and Disney has released a teaser reel for the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” deleted scenes.
For hardcore fans, those scenes have titles too: “Finn and the Villager,” “Jakku Message,” “X-Wings Prepare for Lightspeed,” “Kylo Searches The Falcon,” “Snow Speeder Chase,” and “Finn Will Be Fine” on the Digital HD and Blu-ray Combo Pack (and there’s a special bonus deleted scene called, “Tunnel Standoff” which you can only get if you purchase the Digital HD version or by redeeming the digital copy included in the Blu-ray Combo Pack; oh the hoops they make you go through!). ‘The Force Awakens’ comes home on Digital HD on April 1st and Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD on April 5th. Watch the teaser below.