J.J. Abram's 'Star Wars' Top 'Jurassic Park's' $1B Sales; Director Inspired By English Teacher?
Director J.J. Abram's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" continues to top one billion dollars in global sales during the weekend, making it the film the fastest to reach that level, according to Forward.
The seventh installment of the franchise opened in a few international markets on Dec. 16 and was rolled out the next day in North America.
According to research firm Rentrak, the current record holder for being the fastest to gross $1 billion is Universal Pictures' "Jurassic World," which took 13 days after its release earlier this year.
"Force Awakens" already topped "Jurassic Park" with the biggest opening weekend, generating $529 million globally.
"The experience of doing this movie was by far the most challenging by I don't know how many orders of magnitude," told Abrams to USA TODAY.
"But it was also the most satisfying consistently. The experience of knowing that we were taking on something that matters so much to so many people, the process of exploring what-ifs and trying to find the story that spoke to all of us."
One of the director's inspirations while making the "Star Wars" film was his high school English teacher.
"Yes, the character of Maz Kanata was originally based on the great Rose Gilbert," said Abrams to his hometown newspaper, the Palisadian-Post. "We really wanted the story to feel authentic, despite being a wild fantasy. I mentioned Rose in an early story meeting as a sort of timeless, wise figure that I'd actually known in my life."
The 49-year old director also shared that he regrets his decision not to direct the next installment of the "Star Wars" franchise, reported the Business Standard.
Abrams' close friend Greg Grunberg said in an interview, "Abrams read it and said something he never, ever says."
The director said that it's so good he wishes he was making it shared Grunberg.
J.J. Abrams is also one of the major players behind the philanthropic initiative "Star Wars: Force for Change," which has raised over nine million dollars for charitable causes such as the United Nations Children's Fund.