Star Wars: ‘The Force Awakens’ Breaks Opening Day Record

“The Force Awakens” is set 30 years after the events of 1983’s “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi”.

“Force Awakens” has a shot at becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, according to some analysts.

Many hard-core fans wanted to see the first new “Star Wars” movie in a decade, and the first featuring original stars such as Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in 32 years, as soon as possible.

Moviegoers cheer and wave lightsabers before the first showing of the movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on December 17.

So far, the Disney film has pulled in roughly $130 million worldwide since opening overseas on Wednesday.

Yesterday’s £8.6 million ($12.8 million) takings were the biggest Saturday figure of all time in the United Kingdom and Ireland, beating the two current leading three-day openers, “Skyfall” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2” at this stage in release.

(“Potter” opened with $91 million in 2011.) That film also previously held the Thursday night record with $43.5 million, which is now also owned by “The Force Awakens” with its $57 million preview earnings. Over the film’s first weekend in theaters, the Disney (DIS – Get Report) -produced seventh installment in the stupendously successful series beat Wells Fargo estimates of $225 million, earning $238 million in North America, good for the biggest debut ever.

“There is a screening of Star Wars for Gold Star families and children coming up”.

The newest film in the George Lucas-created franchise – directed by J.J. The record is held by Avatar with Dollars 2.8 billion.

The US firm paid $4.06bn (£2.7bn) for Lucasfilm in 2012, and has a number of sequels and spinoffs already in development, not to mention an entire corner of Disneyland devoted to the franchise.

Star Wars does not share the same universal popularity as other films in certain key markets around the world, such as China. R2-D2 also interacted with reporters by playing the Star Wars theme song and some patriotic tunes.

But so far, “The Force Awakens” is attracting the interest of seemingly everyone.