‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ crosses $250 million globally

The insanely anticipated “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” fulfilled its predicted destiny, breaking the months-old record by grossing $238 million in its domestic debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

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

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has scored the biggest four-day opening weekend of all time in the United Kingdom and Ireland. That number obliterates the US opening day record of $91 million for 2011’s “Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2”.

The movie’s impressive opening also shattered the opening weekend record for movies released in December, when audiences are more focused on holiday shopping and travel.

In a turn of events that will shock precisely nobody, a fantasy adventure space film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens is making insane amounts of money.

The new Star Wars film would appear to be guaranteed of taking at least second spot on the all-time box office chart in Australia, with Titanic’s haul of $57.65 million looking very attainable after such a strong opening.

“The Force Awakens” falls just behind the worldwide record for an opening weekend.

The new Star Wars film is the first instalment in a decade of the series, which was created by George Lucas in 1977. If Force Awakens manages to match those two numbers it will amount to an opening weekend around $251.8 million, which is clearly well within the realm of possibility at this point.

The movie is now open in all markets except Greece and India, where it starts playing December 24, and China, which has set a January 9 debut.

Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm nearly looks like a bargain now. The film, which carries a production cost of at least $200 million, opened in almost all other foreign markets Friday. The record is held by “Avatar” with US$2.8 billion.

China could hold the key to The Force Awakens’ success.