‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ hits $50 million-plus Thursday night

The seventh movie in the beloved space saga was expected to sell more than US$220 million of tickets in American and Canadian theatres by yesterday, beating the record US$208.8 million for Jurassic World in June, Walt Disney Co said last Saturday.

“Force Awakens” surpassed the previous opening-day record of $43.5 million set in 2011 by the final “Harry Potter” movie. It pulled in $120.5-million in the USA on Friday, its first full day in domestic theatres, the highest ever number of ticket sales for a single day. Given the pent-up fan demand and the intense marketing, Disney had estimated that the movie would break the $100 million mark at the U.S. box office on its opening day.

Noam Galai/Getty Images Fans line up to watch “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” outside of AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 on Thursday in New York City.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens can not be directly compared to Spectre, which smashed British box-office records earlier this year, because Sam Mendes’ latest Bond was released on a Monday, while Star Wars’ take is a Thursday-Sunday bow.

Force Awakens began opening around the world on Wednesday. Whether “The Force Awakens” can come close to the global hauls of those films ($2.8 billion for “Avatar” and $2.2 billion for “Titanic”) won’t be clear for weeks.

Jurassic World’s figures, however, included a $99 million opening weekend in China. That honor went to a special screening of “The Force Awakens” for Gold Star families who have lost relatives to combat- or service-related injuries.

Filmmaker George Lucas, left, and writer-director J.J. Abrams attend the premiere of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

The original release that launched this entire franchise, 1977’s “Star Wars”, is still the second biggest film ever ($1.49 billion) when adjusted for inflation – trailing only the 1939 classic “Gone With the Wind” ($1.68 billion).

And “Sisters” – a raunchy comedy with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler – opened in third place, at $13.4 million in sales.

The £9.64m tally beat the previous best of £9.48m set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.