‘Star Wars’ box office tracker: Thursday night opening defeats ‘Potter’ record

This breaks the previous $209-million domestic record set this summer by Jurassic World.

The huge figure makes it the highest-grossing movie debut in the USA and Canada since box office records began, not accounting for inflation, while it also sets a new record for a December opening, more than doubling the United States dollars 84.6 million made by “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” in 2012. Add that to its Friday numbers, and The Force Awakens earned the highest single-day opening of any movie ever with $120.5 million.

Disney said that the strong showing for the latest “Star Wars”, which is playing at 4,134 North American theaters, “keeps us forecasting an opening weekend near $220 million”. The movie opens in USA theaters on Friday, Dec. 18, 2015.

In Britain, Germany, Australia, Russia and many other countries, it scored the biggest opening weekend as well.

“The Force Awakens” hauled in a record $238 million in US and Canadian ticket sales, beating the $208.8 brought in by Universal Studios’ “Jurassic Park” in June. “The Force Awakens” is simultaneously opening around the world just about everywhere but China, where it debuts in January.

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 film’s success isn’t too surprising, given the fact that it had already broken pre-sale ticket records. The current record-holder is Avatar, which generated US$2.8 billion worldwide after its December 2009 release.

Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac star as new key players in the space opera, with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher reprising their iconic roles.

Disney paid $4bn for Lucasfilm and the Star Wars series in all.

The Force Awakens picks up the intergalactic story of good versus evil 30 years on from The Return of the Jedi, the last episode of the original trilogy.