‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ sets Thursday box office record

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” already took in about $55 million in opening Thursday-night shows, which began advance screenings of the film at 7 p.m., according to Box Office Mojo.

If the estimates hold, “The Force Awakens” will easily beat the previous Thursday-night record of $43.5 million by Warner Bros.

The Force Awakens, which has been cloaked in secrecy, is the first Star Wars film in 10 years. Only two films have accumulated over $200 million on their opening weekends, Jurassic World and The Avengers, while Disney’s Avengers: Age of Ultron fell just shy this year with $191.2 million.

The Force Awakens follows on from 1983’s Return Of The Jedi, with franchise veterans Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Han Solo, Leia and Luke Skywalker respectively.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened on Thursday so would have to perform staggeringly well over the weekend to top the latest James Bond’s film’s £41.3m debut, which was calculated over seven days as it opened on a Monday. BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield cut his rating on the stock Friday to sell, saying “Star Wars” profits won’t offset larger troubles Disney faces from shrinking subscribers at its ESPN sports network.

Spain and Japan open Friday with the USA market.

The film also set a new opening day box office record in the United Kingdom and Ireland. “There are literally millions of tickets available for this weekend, and exhibitors have a lot of flexibility in terms of capacity and increasing the number of shows based on demand”.

The seventh installment of the lucrative “Star Wars” franchise hit theaters with a bang Friday – with pre-ticket sales suggesting a possible $100 million-plus opening weekend in the US alone. Fey and Poehler portray siblings throwing a blow-out bash in their childhood home with a production cost of $30 million.