‘Star Wars’ projected to break weekend box-office record

We are projecting an early April release to DVD as the earliest possible date for Star Wars: The Force Awakens to be available for rent and no later than mid-late May. That includes the biggest single day ever in the United Kingdom, where it made an estimated $14.4 million.

The Death Star-sized Thursday night in the USA should also help to boost the film’s outlook for a record breaking opening weekend as well.

If final weekend numbers are even better, the film has a shot at matching or eclipsing “Jurassic World”, which garnered a whopping $524.9 million worldwide. It’s probably worth noting here that “Jurassic World” made $90 million in China on its opening weekend and “Star Wars” is yet to release in that territory.

Analysts predict that the seventh instalment of the iconic space saga, which cost Disney an estimated $200 million to produce, could become the biggest film of all time.

Disney and Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” and South Korean adventure drama “The Himalayas” rounded out the top five highest-grossing films overseas, earning $9.2 million and $8.5 million, respectively. The previous record holder for a December opening was “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey“, which took in $85 million in 2012.

On following day the movie crossed a $100M+ mark to make a new record in Hollywood and set a new trend of triple-digit-million figure per day. In North America, the film sold a record $100 million worth of presale tickets before Thursday previews began at approximately 7 p.m. EST.

Greenfield said the success of “Force Awakens” would not offset the impact of subscriber losses at ESPN.

As far as all-time box office sales, two films by James Cameron hold the record – “Avatar” ($2.78 billion) and “Titanic” ($2.18 billion).

This photo provided by Disney/Lucasfilm shows Daisy Ridley, right, as Rey, and BB-8, in a scene from the film, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, directed by J.J. Abrams.

Success there is no given, because the Chinese are not huge “Star Wars” fans.