It’s not much of a shock, but Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens shattered records during it’s Thursday opening bringing in an estimated $57 million at North American box offices.
The record was previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Part 2 which earned $43.5 million in Thursday previews in July 2011. The Dark Knight Rises made $30.6 million in 2012, and Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 brought in $30.4 million, also in 2012.
The film opened in theaters at 7pm Thursday, and some played showings well in to the night to meet demand. It’ll be playing in a total of 4,134 theaters by Friday.
Rentrak, a service that performs exit polls with PostTrak, said the audience was 71% male, and 53% were over the age of 25, with 64% between the ages of 18 and 34. That’ll shift over the weekend.
The movie currently has a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 88% of individuals said they’d recommend the film to friends according to Rentrak with a 94% positive rating through that service as well.
The current domestic opening record holder is Jurassic World which earned $208.8 million. Expectations are this film will bat it.
Internationally, the film began to roll out on Wednesday in 12 markets, and that expanded yesterday with an additional 32 markets. The film has now earned $72.7 million in those markets. The film broke records with the largest single day of all time in UK/Ireland ($14.4 million), Germany ($7.1 million), Norway ($1.1 million) and Sweden ($1.7 million). It also has the largest opening day in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland (French-speaking), Austria, Ukraine, Slovakia, Croatia, Iceland, Serbia, Chile and Peru.
The film will likely break the previous record of a single day haul of $91 million by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Part 2. The previous record holder for opening weekend was $84.62 million by The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey. There’s a chance this film will break that in one day. The film also broke IMAX records earning $5.7 million, beating Avengers: Age of Ultron which earned $3 million.
Some predict the film will earn $230 million this weekend, and based off these numbers those estimates are too low. I’d guess the number will be closer to $250 million.