Star Wars: The Force Awakens was always destined for a huge box office debut. The question has been how much of a huge opening would it have? The answer came this weekend: A staggering $238 million in North America and $517 million globally.
The film is now well on its way towards the billion dollar mark. The news should come as a relief to Disney, which spent just north of $4 billion dollars on the franchise.
Variety has also put together a list of all the records that it’s broken thus far:
- Biggest domestic debut with $238 million (Previous record: “Jurassic World” with $208.8 million)
- Second-biggest global debut with $517 million (Record holder: “Jurassic World” with $524.9 million)
- Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57 million (Previous record holder: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” with $43.5 million)
- First film to post single-day gross over $100 million
- Fastest film to $100 million and $200 million (Previous record holder: “Jurassic World” on both counts)
- Biggest December debut (Previous record: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” with $84.6 million)
- Highest per-theater average for a wide release with $57,568 (Previous record: “Jurassic World” with $48,855)
- Biggest opening weekend of all time in U.K., Russia, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland, Serbia and New Zealand
- Biggest Imax debut with $48 million
- Most pre-sales with over $100 million (Previous record: “The Dark Knight Rises” with $25 million)
- Best Friday gross with $120.5 million (Previous record: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” with $91.1 million)
- Third best Saturday gross with $68.7 million
- (Record holders: “Jurassic World” with $69.6 and “Marvel’s The Avengers” with $69.5 million)
- Best opening for a “Star Wars” film (Previous record: “Revenge of the Sith” with $108.4 million)
The Hollywood Reporter is noting that while The Force Awakens hasn’t beaten Jurassic World for its world-wide weekend debut, it’s pointed to the fact that Colin Trevorrow’s film opened in China on the same weekend, whereas The Force Awakens is still a couple of weeks away from debuting there.