JJ Abrams regrets not directing ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’

The Critics’ Choice Awards have added Star Wars: The Force Awakens as an 11th best-picture nominee. The movie, the seventh in a near 40-year-old franchise, surged past “Jurassic World” to set a global opening weekend record of $529 million.

“The Force Awakens” will be aiming to top “Jurassic World” again for another record during the upcoming weekend as it sets sights on eclipsing the $106 million mark set in June by the second weekend of the dino sequel. Since then, there has been a 3.5x increase in app installs for these Star Wars-themed apps, as users independently downloaded this content. The previous best was Jurassic World with $13 million.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has a December 18, 2015 release directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Abrams.

“We always believed the worldwide opening for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was going to be strong, but these results have exceeded our expectations”, said Greg Foster, Senior Executive Vice President, IMAX Corp. and CEO of IMAX Entertainment. “Congratulations to Disney and Lucasfilm – we’re extremely proud of the collaboration between our companies, which has resulted not only in this record-setting worldwide opening for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but also in setting the stage for the franchise for years to come”.

Big-budget offerings based on known commodities, whether they be earlier films or hit books, more easily attract massive audiences to theaters. The red carpet of the event saw Darth Vader (film’s villain) and his army of Stormtroopers marching in.

“The Force Awakens” is now 102nd on the worldwide grosser list with $288.1 million in domestic grosses in four days and $322.7 million in global take in six days. I am excited about the film.

But while Disney has been beefing up merchandising ties with China, it still has work to do if “Star Wars” is to truly take root in the country ahead of future installments, said Chen Tao, the head of China fan site StarWarsChina.com.

The friend called a school resource officer Thursday afternoon to report the threat.

All other Critics’ Choice Award nominations remain as previously announced.