‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Smashed Some Box Office Records This Weekend
This news will hardly come as a shock, but Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke some pretty big box office records this weekend — not just one, but several, as Disney and Lucasfilm’s flagship installment of the new trilogy hit theaters Thursday night, quickly shattering a couple of records in its first 24 hours before completely dominating the weekend. Again: hardly surprising, right?
As everyone assumed it probably would, The Force Awakens became a multi-record-breaking blockbuster literally overnight. Here are the numbers, according to a handy press release sent out by Disney:
Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57M.
Biggest Friday and biggest single-day gross with $120.5M.
First film ever to post a single day over $100M.
Fastest film to $100M and $200M.
Biggest December debut (nearly 3 times previous record of $84.6M).
Biggest IMAX Thursday night preview ($5.7M), single-day ($14M, Friday), and weekend ($30.1M).
Highest theater average for a wide release ($57,568).
Although The Force Awakens broke Jurassic World’s previous record for the biggest domestic opening, it failed to defeat Universal’s monster blockbuster for the biggest worldwide opening — falling just $7 million short. But Jurassic World had the advantage of opening on the same day in both China and the U.S., while The Force Awakens opened a day later. Had the latter been given the same advantage, these numbers would be a little different right now.
Domestically, The Force Awakens picked up $238 million since opening on Thursday, and $517 million worldwide, and that’s not to mention the record it shattered for highest ticket pre-sales and biggest single-day opening. This thing is huge — but you knew that. Several fans have already been out to see the film multiple times over the weekend, and with Christmas coming later this week, we may see the latest Star Wars installment break another record as fans and families flock to the theater for the holidays.