‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Shatters Box Office Records

That in turn will push the movie to a total of $528 million worldwide, surpassing Jurassic World’s $524 million.

Moviegoers cheers and wave lightsabers before the first showing of the movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, December 17, 2015.

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The Disney sci-fi epic, featuring original franchise stars Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher as well as newcomers Oscar Isaac, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, skyrocketed to number one, easily eclipsing the $209 million debut previously set by Jurassic World in June of this year. The Force Awakens is the seventh in the series created by George Lucas in 1977.

Nostalgia, plus a carefully planned, months-long release of film trailers and character profiles boosted interest.

“To all of the fans around the world who not only came out in Force to make this such an exciting and astronomical debut, but who treated this film as their own and helped preserve the experience for their fellow fans by not spoiling it – thank you, we do”. Forty-two percent of the weekend’s domestic audience was female, Disney said. This was largely due to the former opening in China, the world’s second largest film market, the same weekend as the US and many other territories.

A gaggle of Stormtroopers and the droid R2-D2 were spotted in West Wing Friday, as the seat of U.S. executive power succumbed to intergalactic-sized hype around the new blockbuster Star Wars movie.

But this may just be the beginning of the film’s box office empire with movie choices in January and February pretty depleted at the cineplex. Disney made an effort to build buzz, placing 500 miniature Stormtroopers at the Great Wall and striking a deal to stream the six earlier “Star Wars” films through video service Tencent.