New ‘Star Wars’ grosses $120 mn to break record

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” grossed an estimated $238 million for the studio in the United States and Canada through Sunday, the biggest opening weekend for a film ever, reports Box Office Mojo.

The seventh movie in the beloved space saga was expected to sell more than US$220 million of tickets in American and Canadian theatres by yesterday, beating the record US$208.8 million for Jurassic World in June, Walt Disney Co said last Saturday. Warner’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 previously held the Thursday night record with a distant $43.5 million.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Star Wars European premiere took place in London.

In Japan, the $13.5 million take was more than double any other opening release this year but well behind the opening weekend of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, which bowed to $18.97 million in Japan in 2005, still the all-time record for the country.

Despite the huge opening, “Force Awakens” hasn’t made any money quite yet.

The financial force was strong with the new “Star Wars” film.

Disney plans four “Star Wars” movies through 2019, plus major expansions at its USA theme parks to incorporate the droids, spaceships and otherworldly creatures of the universe Lucas invented. The movie reportedly raked in more than $100 million in pre-sales before its early Thursday night opening, and when the final theatrical trailer was played during Monday night football on ESPN, it was subsequently viewed more than 128 million times over a 24-hour period. With Christmas around the corner, Star Wars definitely won’t be dropping that much next weekend, but we’re talking about uncharted territory here, which makes a future forecast just as hard as it was predicting the film’s opening weekend.

The £9.64m tally beat the previous best of £9.48m set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Nomura Securities analyst Anthony DiClemente, who rates Disney a “buy”, said he was more confident after seeing the movie that it could become the top-grossing film of all time.

The sci-fi adventure film starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Harrison Ford has been a intergalactic hit with both fans and critics. The movie scored a 95 percent positive rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences awarded an “A” grade in polling by survey firm CinemaScore.