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Universal breaks the international box-office record with four months to go in the year

Rick Marshall
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With just over four months to go in 2015, Universal Pictures has already set a new record for the highest-grossing year of all time worldwide.

Led by blockbusters Jurassic World and Furious 7, the studio has grossed more than $3.78 billion internationally this year, breaking the previous record of $3.73 billion set by 20th Century Fox just a year ago. The studio’s final tally for 2015 is likely to be quite a bit higher, as many of its popular films are still in theaters and the studio has a few more projects debuting before the end of the year.

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At this point in the year, Universal Pictures is responsible for four of the five highest-grossing films worldwide. Furious 7 leads the pack with $1.2 billion, and it’s trailed by Jurassic World with $983.5 million. Disney’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is third on the list and the only non-Universal project in the top five worldwide with $944 million. The rest of the list includes Universal’s animated feature Minions ($670.2 million) and the studio’s big-screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey ($404.1 million).

Along the way to setting this new record, Universal also became the fastest studio to hit the $2 billion and $3 billion marks worldwide in any calendar year, and already has the longest record of films occupying the top spot in the international box-office rankings over the course of a year.

While Furious 7 has been the studio’s biggest project overall, Jurassic World has taken ownership of just about every box-office record a film can have since its premiere back in June. The film had the most successful opening weekend of all time both domestically and worldwide, and became the fastest film to reach the $1 billion mark internationally after just 13 days in theaters.

For its part, Furious 7 is only the third film in history to earn $1 billion worldwide — a status it shares with only 1997’s Titanic and 2009’s Avatar. On the animated side, Minions currently ranks as the third highest-grossing animated feature of all time worldwide, trailing only Frozen ($1.3 billion) and Toy Story 3 ($1.1 billion).

Amazingly, there are quite a few films still coming from the studio that have the potential for big returns. The IMAX-friendly thriller Everest arrives in theaters next month, and the studio’s much-anticipated biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (starring Michael Fassbender) premieres just a month later. Guillermo Del Toro’s gothic horror Crimson Peak then debuts just in time for Halloween.

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Universal becomes the fastest studio to reach $1B domestically, $3B internationally
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