'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Breaks Single-Day, Weekend, IMAX Records with $238 Million Domestic Box Office

CBR

By Ben Kaye

Published Dec 20, 2015

"Episode VII" is also streaking past previously held international box office records at light speed.

Since opening day, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has been blasting box office records left and right. With the weekend nearly wrapped, official daily numbers and weekend estimates have been released, and it's now clear "Episode VII" will be the owner of a staggering 12 domestic records.

At the top of that list is of course the highest opening weekend for a film ever with an estimated $238 million. That's a solid $30 million more than “Jurassic World’s” $208.4 million, which it earned just earlier this year. Globally, "The Force Awakens" is estimated to have a five-day total of $517 million.

On the way to these record-crumbling returns, the film also posted the biggest Thursday preview gross ($57 million) and the biggest Friday gross ($120.5 million). The Friday numbers also give the movie the biggest single-day gross ever, as well as making it the first film to ever post a single day above $100 million. What's more, it's officially the fastest film to hit either $100 or $200 million, while snatching the biggest December debut off all time by demolishing "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey's" $84.6 million debut from 2012.

The numbers keep getting better when you look at IMAX screenings. "The Force Awakens" is now claims the biggest Thursday IMAX preivew ($5.7 million), the biggest single-day gross (Friday's $14 million), and the biggest IMAX weekend ever with $30.1 million. Taken all together, it also means the film has earned the highest theater average for a wide release with $57,568 per theater.

“Our sole focus has been creating a film that delivers that one-of-a-kind Star Wars experience, and director J.J. Abrams, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, and the Lucasfilm team have outdone themselves,” The Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn said in a press release. “To all of the fans around the world who not only came out in Force to make this such an exciting and astronomical debut but who treated this film as their own and helped preserve the experience for their fellow fans by not spoiling it – thank you, we do.”

He wasn't just thanking fans in the U.S., either, as "The Force Awakens" opened day-and-date across the globe (except in Greece, India, and China). Unsurprisingly, it took home a score of international records too:

Biggest opening weekend of all time in UK (4-day), 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.
Biggest IMAX global debut of $48M.