‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ smashes box office records

And with the Star Wars franchise having an in-depth lore of its universe, it is no surprise that the new movie will feature something from the previous films, and not to mention some special cameo appearances of celebrities that are fans of Star Wars.

“Force Awakens” also had the biggest Friday of all time, with $120.5 million. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, a site that aggregates reviews from around the web, the new Star Wars movie holds a 95 percent approval rating among professional critics and is sitting handsomely at 92 percent among the general public. And the studio has as many as five more “Star Wars” films in the works. It was also, on its own, bigger than any total domestic box office weekend since June.

Globally, the latest “Star Wars” space epic raked in an estimated $517 million, Disney said, breaking records for biggest opening weekend overseas in 18 other countries, including Russian Federation and Germany, and second biggest across four nations. It’s beating global debut records as well, edging past Jurassic World’s overall take $528 million to $524.9 million. It’s a damn good start, but it still has a ways to go to hit that movie’s insane $760.5 million domestic total and $2.7 BILLION worldwide total.

Movie theater attendance in the United States and Canada, the world’s largest film market, has barely changed in a decade as online and mobile platforms exploded. That’s not the only record the new Star Wars flick broke. With theaters expanding times into mornings and nights to accommodate more showtimes, it got me wondering whether the movie might have actually approached the highest possible take that American cinemas could even command in 2015.

John Boyega gave Star War fans an unexpected treat by making a number of surprise appearances at screenings of The Force Awakens. Enter a familiar smuggling duo, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), who agree to lead their young counterparts to the resistance leader, General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher).

Modelled after R2-DT, but with pink instead of blue detailing (Katie’s favourite colour), R2-KT was built by the R2 builder’s club: skilled artisans and technicians who also helped create the droids for The Force Awakens. 360 – Days until the release of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”, Disney’s first “Star Wars” spinoff film.