10 Insane Movie Box-Office Records That Will Probably Never Be Broken

8. January Opening Weekend

Bradley Cooper American Sniper
Warner Bros.

Current Record Holder: American Sniper ($89,269,066)

American Sniper's box-office performance took everyone by surprise back in 2015. Sure, it had awards buzz behind it and a proven leading man in Bradley Cooper, but for an R-rated drama to do as well as it did was no predictable feat.

It was even more impressive when you consider it began its cash-heavy run in January, of all months. Initially released in a limited amount of theatres on Christmas Day in 2014, the movie went wide on January 16, 2015 in the U.S. and pulled in an astonishing $89.2 million on its first weekend.

It was unusual for a movie to perform this well in January due to the month being recognised as something of a 'dumping ground', a slow period where studios can throw all their trash in one place without really expecting anything to perform.

Not that American Sniper was trash - it was great - but the 'dumping ground' effect will probably ensure that nothing can come close to touching this record for a long, long time.

January rarely sees any quality, notable releases - even culturally dominant flicks like Split, The Revenant and Cloverfield only managed openings around $40 million - and with American Sniper's opening weekend outperforming most tentpole releases, it'll take nothing short of a perfect storm for this record to be overthrown.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!