‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ expected to bring in $215M in weekend

Get ready for an influx of Star Wars box office reports, because Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been breaking records since pre-sale tickets went online, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Ticket sales Thursday night and Friday surpassed previous records set by the final “Harry Potter” film in 2011.

So far, the Disney film has pulled in roughly $130 million worldwide since opening overseas on Wednesday. Japan and Spain will see openings Friday.

“Analysts expect The Force Awakens to make about $200m in the U.S. and Canada over its opening weekend, a total that could challenge the record Jurassic World set earlier this year”. Disney says the film appears to be on track for more than $200 million in ticket sales this weekend.

Boxofficemojo adds that The Force Awakens is now the largest single day performer of all time in UK/Ireland ($14.4m), Germany ($7.1m), Sweden ($1.7m) and Norway ($1.1.m) and boasts the largest opening day in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Croatia, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland (French-speaking) and Ukraine. Disney’s carefully planned release of film trailers and tidbits of information over several months also boosted ticket sales, he said. “The Force Awakens” is simultaneously opening around the world just about everywhere but China, where it debuts in January.

Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian, one of Hollywood’s best-known box office analysts, said the film’s opening night performance in the United States and Canada “portends a massive and potentially record-breaking opening day and weekend for the film”.

Imax and 3-D screenings are helping to propel the record gross.

Guess that $4 billion dollar initial investment that Disney made in LucasFilm is paying off. Sequels and spinoffs are already in development for years to come, not to mention an entire corner of Disneyland devoted to the franchise. Critics have hailed it as a fan-friendly return to form for the franchise; the American Film Institute listed it among its top 10 films of the year.

“It might join the $2 billion club worldwide, and maybe, just maybe, be the highest grossing film of all-time”.

But so far, “The Force Awakens” is attracting the interest of seemingly everyone.

Opening the press conference in the White House press room, the President did joke that this wasnt the most important thing going down on-site today.

“There is a screening of Star Wars for Gold Star families and children (of USA soldiers killed in combat) coming up”.