Disney has announced today that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has set a new all-time domestic debut record in North America with an estimated $238 million. With a five-day international debut of $279 million, the film has taken in an amazing $517 million globally.
“Our sole focus has been creating a film that delivers that one-of-a-kind Star Wars experience, and director J.J. Abrams, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, and the Lucasfilm team have outdone themselves,” said Alan Horn, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios. “To all of the fans around the world who not only came out in Force to make this such an exciting and astronomical debut but who treated this film as their own and helped preserve the experience for their fellow fans by not spoiling it – thank you, we do.”
These are just a handful of the records Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken so far:
• Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57M.
• Biggest Friday and biggest single-day gross with $120.5M.
• First film ever to post a single day over $100M.
• Fastest film to $100M and $200M.
• Biggest December debut (nearly 3 times previous record of $84.6M).
• Biggest IMAX Thursday night ($5.7M), single-day ($14M, Friday), and weekend ($30.1M).
• Highest theater average for a wide release ($57,568).
• Biggest opening weekend of all time in UK (4-day), Australia, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Poland (3-day), Denmark (5-day), Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland, Serbia, New Zealand. Second biggest opening weekend in France, Belgium, Israel, Chile.
• Biggest IMAX global debut of $48M.
With a score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes (you can read our review by clicking here), Star Wars: The Force Awakens is officially a hit, and it should have no trouble reaching $1 billion over the course of the next week. Will it ultimately top Avatar? That remains to be seen!
Don’t forget to check out the questions we want answered from the movie by clicking here.
