Star Wars: The Force Awakens has earned eight times more than 2012's The Hunger Games movie, the previous record holder. According to Variety, the move has garnered a "staggering $50 million+ in advanced ticket sales." This figure is twice that of The Dark Knight Rises.
One third of such sales, according to sources, come from 390 IMAX theaters. Imax representative said that it sold $6.5 million worth of tickets during the first 12 hours - a first for IMAX since it previously never had sold more than $1 million a day in presales.
According to Fandango, The Force Awakens is considered the biggest pre-seller in the history of the ticketing company. Fandango further revealed that they are adding more show times in order to keep up with the demand.
The picture is said to break more records during its first week. As of the present, the current record holder for biggest global box-office take is Avatar with $2.79 billion for worldwide records and $760.5 million for domestic.
Movie experts believe that the film will break Jurassic World's biggest opening record with $208.8 million. If that happens, then The Force Awakens will also break records in terms of earning more than $100 million during December, since the competition is tough during the Christmas movie-going season. Pundits, at the very least, are saying that the film is somehow "destined to eclipse the $85 million bow of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to set a new benchmark for December openings."
The Hollywood Reported that the online sales began on Oct. 19 for the film. According to Twitter, between 11 a.m. Oct. 19 and 11 a.m. Oct. 20, there were 1.1 million Star Wars-related tweets.
With 28 more days before the movie finally hits the theaters, it is not a surprise that the sales will continue to grow. It has been forecasted, however, that the J.J. Abrams-directed sequel will become "one of the highest-grossing films ever, if not the highest-grossing".
The Wall Street Journal first reported "The Force Awakens'" record sales.
