Star Wars sales rocket into hyperspace, smash box office records

As expected, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken the opening weekend domestic box office record.

The latest instalment of the highly anticipated space epic raked in $57 million for its opening night Thursday, easily beating the previous record – $43.5 million – held by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” in 2011.

“Star Wars” is opening in 4,134 theaters in the USA and Canada, a record for a December debut.

However, “The Force Awakens” has yet to open in China, the world’s second biggest film market.

“Force Awakens” began rolling out in global markets on Wednesday.

According to social analysis by Amobee, on the films release there were almost 1.3 million tweets mentioning Star Wars with Twitter sentiment being 25 per cent Positive, 63 per cent Neutral, and 12 per cent Negative. But who knew that the seventh installment would gross $100 million in one day?

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It also had the biggest single-day in sales for any movie, along with the biggest Friday a film has ever had with $120.5 million.

That’s because “The Force Awakens”, based on the first wave of estimates, is trampling some records with the force of a Tauntaun – and is poised to overcome more. Combine that with the money it’s made overseas and it’s now over $250 million globally since it hit theatres.

In other box office news, from a galaxy much closer to home, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip opened to $14.4 million and an A- CinemaScore. It will surely crack the top three all-time movie earners both domestically and worldwide, but whether it threatens James Cameron heavyweights Titanic and Avatar in the top two spots won’t be determined for months to come.

Critics applauded Force Awakens, which features newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac alongside original stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

In 2012, Walt Disney Co. purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in cash and stock Lucasfilm was founded by George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars.