To the surprise of absolutely no one but to the great relief of Disney, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has set a new record for opening weekend at the Australian box office, as it soars to a global box office in excess of half a billion American dollars in its first three days.
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“I don’t think ever in the history of movies has there been more hype leading up to the release of a film”, said Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co, “This is a huge, huge win”.
Whilst that figure is slightly behind Jurassic World’s $524m, it’s expected that once the final numbers have been calculated, Star Wars will have nabbed that record too. Jurassic World took United States dollars 208.8 million at domestic theaters in its first weekend.
Disney plans four “Star Wars” movies through 2019, plus major expansions at its USA theme parks to incorporate the droids, spaceships and otherworldly creatures of the universe Lucas invented.
The Force Awakens made $57m (£38m) on Thursday night, beating the previous record of $43.5m held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The total earnings of the movie since it opened last December 18 and throughout the weekend has been over $518 million, as IGN reports, and this has not let up yet.
The Force Awakens also stars Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis and Domhnall Gleeson, plus a secret stormtrooper cameo from Bond actor Daniel Craig.
Disney rose 1.7 percent to $109.50 before the markets opened.
The Force Awakens also set a new opening-day record of more than $9.4 million.
It will be a hard act to follow, not only by other films, but by its sequel, “Star Wars: Episode VIII” as well as the coming “Star Wars” anthology movies.
The film is being tipped to top the record achievement of Avatar in grossing US$2.8bn in global sales.
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However the main reason why Star Wars failed to eclipse the summer blockbuster was that it failed to secure a release date in China until early January.
