‘Star Wars Force Awakens’ IMAX, preview and box office records

John Boyea and Daisy Ridley

Experts have been analyzing and predicting the box office performance of Star Wars: The Force Awakens for months, but now we have hard numbers that give the sci-fi sequel the biggest domestic box office opening of all time.

That’s just one of the records that The Force Awakens box office numbers smashed and it seems bound to potentially smash a few more as well. 

In its opening weekend, Star Wars: The Force Awakens raked in $238 million in the United States, putting it well ahead of this year’s record-setting $208.8 million opening weekend from Jurassic World.

Worldwide the film has pulled in $517 million total, putting it just shy of Jurassic World‘s $524 million. UPDATE: Boxofficemojo has figures showing $528, but they may include dates prior to the weekend and wouldn’t count towards the record.

In addition, here’s a list of the other box office records that now belong to Star Wars: The Force Awakens:

• Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57 million
• Biggest Friday and biggest single-day gross with $120.5 million
• First film ever to post a single day over $100 million
• Fastest film to $100 million and $200 million
• Biggest December debut (nearly 3 times previous record of $84.6 million)
• Biggest IMAX Thursday night preview ($5.7 million), single-day ($14 million, Friday), and weekend ($30.1 million)
• Highest theater average for a wide release ($57,568)

In addition, The Force Awakens also landed the biggest weekend opening in 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. The same can be said for the United Kingdom, but that was for a four-day weekend opening.

The film also has the biggest global IMAX debut at $48 million. The film still has to open in Greece and India on December 24th and China on January 9th, though the latter has an uphill battle for Disney to generate interest, and they’ve been trying hard.

The Force Awakens may not have the staying power of Avatar or Titanic, the films that have the top two spots in both the domestic and international box office charts. Star Wars is more of a niche movie and doesn’t appeal to everyone, so the interest may not last as it did for James Cameron’s films.

There’s no denying that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will continue to rake in hundreds of millions, but only time will tell if it has the strength and endurance to climb to the very top of the box office charts. There’s plenty of showtimes on 4,134 theaters, so if you haven’t seen it yet, now is the time.