Star Wars Scores $57 Million for Opening Night
Ahead of what is set to be an insane opening weekend, Box Office Mojo reports that Star Wars: The Force Awakens scored a record-breaking amount of money for its opening night previews on Thursday (Dec. 17). Based off the Thursday evening and late-night previews, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has pulled in an estimated record $57 million. The previous box office record holder for Thursday night previews was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011, which scored the previous record of $43.5 million.
However, the box office accolades for Star Wars do not end there. The film’s international debut on Wednesday (Dec. 16) in 12 markets, along with 32 additional markets yesterday (Dec. 17), has added $72.7 million to the film’s total gross. That puts The Force Awakens at $130 million worldwide ahead of its first weekend of release.
For the final weekend numbers, Disney will be rolling Thursday’s $57 million gross into the Friday (Dec. 18) total numbers. This is expected to give The Force Awakens the largest opening Friday for a film in box office history. One thing to note in comparison to the Harry Potter and The Force Awakens numbers is that Harry Potter only had midnight showings, while Star Wars actually had showings as early as 7 pm.
According to the BOM report, the opening weekend prediction for Star Wars: The Force Awakens currently stands at $231 million, except that the record-breaking numbers on Thursday suggest that the film’s opening weekend could be even higher. This very well means that Jurassic World’s highest opening weekend ever of $208 million earlier this summer could already get eclipsed by Star Wars.
This news comes off the heels of reports that the film had sold over $100 million already in ticket pre-sales. In addition, the film currently stands at 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the best reviewed Star Wars movies ever. The Force Awakens mania is completely back in full swing.