Before Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered, I bet a friend it would reach half-a-billion dollars by New Years. He didn’t think it would. We were both wrong.
Globally, Episode VII passed the half-billion mark today and may well pass its first billion by New Years.
How does this happen? Well, Rotten Tomatoes has it ranked 95% Fresh; Metacritic sits at 81 (Universal Acclaim) and fans scoring it at IMDb give it 8.8/10 – plus Cinemascore has it as an A.
If you’re interested in numbers, there are a bunch of them following the jump – including biggest IMAX Thursday night and best IMAX global debut; biggest opening ever in 19 countries (excluding China, where it opens on January 9th), and biggest Thursday preview gross.
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Posts $238M Domestic, $517M Global Debut
The Walt Disney Studios announced today that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has set a new all-time domestic debut record with an estimated $238M. With a five-day international debut of $279M, the film has taken in $517M 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.”
En route to this galactic launch, the film has smashed several all-time domestic box office records, including:
- 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 preview ($5.7M), single-day ($14M, Friday), and weekend ($30.1M).
- Highest theater average for a wide release ($57,568).
Star Wars: The Force Awakens debuted day-and-date internationally in nearly every market (except Greece and India, which open Dec. 24, and China, which opens Jan. 9) and set records in many. Highlights:
- Biggest opening weekend of all time in Canada, 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.
The Force is strong with critics and audiences, whose enthusiastic reactions have powered a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and an excellent A CinemaScore, with an A+ among women and younger audiences, for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.