"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is due to come out in less than a month and, let's just say, people are extremely excited about it.
Online sales for the movie started Oct. 19 before the full trailer for "The Force Awakens" dropped on ESPN's Monday Night Football. Ticket sites were reported experiencing crashes due to demand and all that has now amounted to over $50 million in advance ticket sales for North America.
By Oct. 20, Fandango had reported it beat its own presale records, selling eight times more than what it churned out for the opening day of the first "Hunger Games" movie. Showing "The Force Awakens" in around 390 theaters in the United States, Imax sold about $6.5 million tickets within the first 12 hours since preselling began. For the same time period, it had never presold over $1 million in a day. AMC's Imax auditoriums represented 38 percent of recorded sales, with over 1,000 shows sold out across the country.
This leads many to believe that "The Force Awakens" will bag the biggest opening of all time in North America, besting "Jurassic World," which earned $208.8 million in June on its first day. Actually, it was not really a question of whether or not the movie could take the top spot but was more of by how much, with estimates eyeing the $250-million mark. Some even predict that it could come close to $300 million.
However, the pre-Christmas corridor is not exactly known for big opening days because most people are generally distracted by preparations for the holidays. Instead, most movies rake in ticket sales within the final two weeks of the year, particularly the sweet spot between the Christmas and New Year weekends.
Then again, "The Force Awakens" is not exactly like most movies.
If you haven't bought a ticket yet, don't fret. Online ticket services are saying plenty of seats are still available for the movie's opening weekend. Those in France and the United Kingdom, however, will see "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in advance of their North American counterparts on Dec. 16 and 17, respectively. The movie is scheduled for a Dec. 18 release in North America.
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