‘Force Awakens’ on track for record $215M-plus weekend

The Gold Star program is for the families of those who died serving in the U.S. military.

Indeed, the White House was hosting a screening of the movie in the WH private theater, with First Lady Michele Obama greeting children of Gold Star families, an organization founded in 2005 by individuals who lost family members in the Iraq War.

President Barack Obama began his year-end press conference Friday by letting reporters know their meeting wouldn’t be the most important event taking place Friday. “So I’ll try to be relatively succinct”.

The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie made without the direct involvement of George Lucas, is dramatically better than the last three “prequels” and one of the best written entries in the saga so far.

After President Obama’s news conference Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Josh Earnest suddenly appeared in the press briefing room with two Imperial Stormtroopers and R2-D2, surprising journalists waiting for the president to depart for his Hawaiian holiday vacation. “Katie said, “If you want to do this and you don’t, you’re going to regret this”. The Hobbit got close with an $86 million opening weekend, and American Sniper grossed $89 when it went wide, but Star Wars is absolutely setting a new bar for December relases.

Reporters joked that this left little doubt as to which side of the force the administration was on.