‘The Force Awakens’ Has Already Made $50 Million a Month Before It Opens

For a major-release film, a $50 million opening weekend gross is respectable, but not amazing. A $50 million opening day is even more impressive, edging on bona fide blockbuster territory. But to have already raked in $50 million on advance ticket sales alone is a feat of an entirely different caliber, and to have accomplished this feat with a full month until the film in question actually debuts in theaters harkens the arrival of a new titan. With four weeks still to go before Star Wars: the Force Awakens takes cineplexes by storm, it has begun its mass obliteration of box-office records.

Box-office analysts are predicting an unprecedented opening for the seventh installment in the popular sci-fi franchise, setting a new standard for success in Hollywood. Online ticketing service Fandango confirmed that The Force Awakens has supplanted The Hunger Games as the most successful pre-seller in the company’s history, a development not so surprising with memories of crashed servers still burning bright in the minds of many frustrated fans.

The seventh Star Wars film is fully expected to surpass the opening-weekend benchmark of $208.8 million that Jurassic World set earlier this summer, and if it does indeed break that record, it will also be the first film released in December to open with more than $100 million in the first weekend. The greatest brass ring of all remains Avatar’s dizzying gross of $760 million domestically, a staggering haul that shook out to more than $2 billion worldwide. People love Star Wars, there’s no debate over that. But will they love it $2 billion’s worth?