Star Wars breaks another ticket sales record

By Rick Marshall December 17, 2015

Star Wars The Force Awakens — Disney

It hasn’t even officially opened yet in theaters, but Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens has already sold more tickets via online ticketing agent Fandango than any other film during its entire run.

Fandango announced the record-breaking achievement today, and indicated that The Force Awakens moved past Jurassic World this morning to take the lead in the site’s ranking of overall ticket sales.

The latest record to fall for The Force Awakens, today’s cumulative sales tally followed an announcement earlier in the week that the seventh installment of the sci-fi franchise had also broken the pre-release ticket sales record on Fandango. While Fandango reps declined to offer exact numbers on the film’s record, the site did indicate that The Force Awakens had to pass The Hunger Games, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and finally Jurassic World on its way to the top of the rankings.

According to Variety, The Force Awakens has generated ticket sales well into 2016, with many predicting it will break Jurassic World‘s all-time opening weekend record in U.S. theaters. The current record for opening weekends was set by Jurassic World earlier this year with its $208.8 million debut in U.S. theaters to go along with $524.9 million worldwide.

The Force Awakens is also being eyed as a likely candidate to become the all-time biggest blockbuster in Hollywood history, but it will have to overcome the massive box-office gross of James Cameron’s 2009 hit Avatar, which earned more than $760.5 million during its run in U.S. theaters and more than $2.78 billion worldwide.

Given that two of the five most successful films in U.S. theaters of all time (and three of the five most successful films worldwide) were released in the last five years, there’s reason to believe that The Force Awakens could indeed be the highest-grossing film of all time by this time next year.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…

Entertainment

Spotify celebrates Star Wars Day with soundtracks and audio books

The Mandalorian and Grogu in a poster for the Disney+ series.

In May 1977, the original Star Wars hit theaters and changed cinemas forever. And although the actual release date was May 25, 1977, fans have embraced May the Fourth as the annual Star Wars Day celebration (for obvious reasons). To celebrate this year's Star Wars Day, Spotify has something special in mind for music fans and audio book connoisseurs.

Composer John Williams' iconic Star Wars music from all nine of the main feature films is streaming under Spotify's Best of Star Wars Playlist alongside some more recent additions to the musical canon. That includes Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab's score for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the hit video sequel that just hit stores at the end of April. Kevin Kiner's music from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Star Wars: The Bad Batch is also featured, as is Michael Giacchino's powerful score from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Additionally, Spotify's Playlist for The Mandalorian now has Joseph Shirley's score from season 3 alongside Ludwig Göransson's soundtracks for the first two seasons.

Entertainment

The 10 most expensive movies of all time

Rey runs from an explosion in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Have you ever wondered what goes into the cost of making a movie? Specifically, a blockbuster of epic proportion that incorporates massive set pieces spanning across the globe with A-list talent and stunning visual effects. In short, it's not cheap to make a movie of this scale. There was once a time when $200 million was considered an expensive film. Now, $200 million is the standard as studio budgets continue to increase past $300, even $400 million.

Superhero movies are typically associated with massive budgets due to the high volume of CGI. However, more studios are increasing budgets for films they believe could be billion-dollar earners and kick off a successful franchise. Below are the 10 most expensive movies of all time.

Entertainment

Every time we’ve seen Order 66 in Star Wars movies, video games, and TV shows

Anakin marches to the Jedi temple in Revenge of the Sith.

Twenty years ago, if you asked a Star Wars fan to name the most pivotal moment in the franchise’s fictional history, you could be confident that they’d answer with the Battle of Yavin, the climax of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. After all, this event serves as the starting point of the official Star Wars calendar; fans and producers alike measure time in Star Wars in terms of years BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) or years ABY (After the Battle of Yavin), endowing the destruction of the Death Star with a historical importance within the fictional galaxy that's equivalent to the birth of Christ. Though the BBY/ABY calendar is still in service today, the ever-expanding Star Wars continuity now revolves around a different moment of historical import: Order 66, the flashpoint of the Jedi Purge and the rebranding of the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire.
First depicted in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith in 2005, Order 66 has become the most revisited moment in the current Star Wars canon, and explored from a multitude of perspectives. Then-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s directive to execute the entire Jedi Order, from the ruling council to the youngest student, is now the inciting incident for Star Wars as we know it. Every character active in galactic affairs in the year 19 BBY has their own Order 66 story, and several of them have been depicted in film, television, and video games. Let's takea look back at each substantive on-screen portrayal of the Jedi Purge to determine what (if anything) each of them adds to our understanding of the tragedy and its repercussions on the Star Wars galaxy.

Revenge of the Sith shows the broad strokes of the Jedi Purge