New ‘Star Wars’ sets $57 mln opening night record

“Force Awakens” surpassed the previous opening-day record of $43.5 million set in 2011 by the final “Harry Potter” movie.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has also taken in $72.7 million from its first two days in 44 worldwide markets.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters today.

But so far, “The Force Awakens” is attracting the interest of seemingly everyone. Reviews of the movie have so far been highly positive, with many drawing favorable comparisons to the most recent Star Wars movies made by George Lucas between 1999 and 2005.

“This represents a new record for the industry and portends a massive and potentially record-breaking opening day and weekend for the film”, said Paul Dergarabedian, of box office tracker Rentrak.

Disney hasn’t offered a forecast but its marketing campaign has clearly tapped into an enormous pent-up demand for the return of Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca and Han Solo, plus the new characters and story line.

A lot is riding on the film for Disney, which paid $4.06 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012.

President Obama, who once, to the bafflement of nerds everywhere, mixed up Star Wars and Star Trek, concluded his end-of-year press conference-where he discussed a range of topics, including terrorism and climate change-by saying, “OK everybody, I’ve got to get to Star Wars“. The movie ticket service Fandango said it has already sold more tickets for “The Force Awakens” than any movie over its entire theatrical run. Both should round out their opening weekends with about $14 million each. Disney said that 47 percent of the Thursday box office came from 3-D showings and $5.7 million from Imax screens.

More than $100 million in tickets have been presold in North America. Fey and Poehler portray siblings throwing a blow-out bash in their childhood home with a production cost of $30 million.