Star Wars: The Force Awakens became the biggest opening in movie history bringing in an estimated $238 million in the USA this weekend.
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A crowd watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens at a theater in Hollywood collectively pitched a fit Friday night when the projector stopped, then restarted 15 or 20 minutes ahead in the action, said Erik Melendez, who spoke to CNN and posted cell phone video of the moment on Facebook.
“The Force Awakens”, directed by J.J. Abrams, stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the key roles as Rey and Finn along with along with original “Star Wars” stars Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Mark Hamill as Luke Sywalker and Carrie Fisher as General Leia.
That would set the all-time opening weekend record, besting the $208.8 million haul of “Jurassic World” earlier this year.
That includes the biggest single day ever in the United Kingdom, where it made an estimated $14.4 million. 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.
And while many analysts expected the film to collect $1.5 billion to $2 billion globally, “The Force Awakens” is now predicted to gross $2.6 billion worldwide.
“It might join the $2bn club worldwide, and maybe, just maybe, be the highest grossing film of all-time”. “There would have to be an historic drop not to”, says Jeff Bock, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.
Early reviews of the movie have given it a thumbs up, and three more instalments are due in the coming years.
But in the past year, “Star Wars” has basically taken over the world in anticipation of the release of “The Force Awakens”.
What happens when a marketing machine that rivals the Death Star has a product that meets or even exceeds the hype?
The film is being screened in 4,134 theaters in North America, a record for a December opening.
The latest Star Wars film may very well be the most anticipated film in the galaxy, and yet, for Disney, the stakes remain high.
“Clearly, this is not the most important thing that’s taking place in the White House today”, he joked.
A gaggle of Stormtroopers and the droid R2-D2 were spotted in the West Wing on Friday-there was a screening of “Star Wars” for people who lost family in the Iraq war.
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After fielding questions, Obama concluded the press conference: “OK everybody, I got to get to ‘Star Wars'”.
