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Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Franchise’s 7th Installment Sets Global Box Office Debut Record

Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Franchise’s 7th Installment Sets Global Box Office Debut Record:

The first “Star Wars” movie in a decade recorded the largest national opening in Hollywood’s history, accumulating $238 million over the weekend in America and Canada. In addition, it establish records in Australia, Britain, Russia and elsewhere as lovers adopted a fresh chapter in the galactic conflict between good and bad.

Where an Australian couple wed in line for the movie, thousands joined a mock lightsaber battle in Los Angeles.

“This is a huge, huge triumph.”

The fiscal and critical achievement of the film’s mark a triumph for Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger’s strategy of getting proven brands, including comic book powerhouse Marvel and Pixar Animation, to fuel Disney’s entertainment empire.

Disney bought “Star Wars” producer Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 as element of his stake on large-budget movies.

Movie theater presence in Canada and America, the biggest movie market in the world’s, has hardly changed in a decade as mobile and also on-line platforms burst. Subscribers to the sports power station of Disney, ESPN, have shrunk, a much-known indication of pressure on traditional media.

Worldwide sales for “Force Awakens” concluded second only to the dinosaur movie “Jurassic World,” which in its June opening garnered $525 million globally, including China, where the “Star Wars” movie is not going to open for weeks. “Jurassic World” took $208.8 million at national theatres in its first weekend.

“Force Awakens” is the seventh episode in the epic science fiction franchise created by George Lucas in 1977.

Theatres added showtimes to satisfy demand.

Disney plans four “Star Wars” films through 2019, plus important growths at its U.S. theme parks to integrate the droids, spaceships and otherworldly creatures of the universe Lucas devised. “Force Awakens” toys, clothes, home accessories and video games already pervade shops ahead of Christmas.

A Reuters Breakingviews investigation last week computed that Disney may be on course to triple its Lucasfilm investment and bring in a mean of $669 million off the franchise in every one of the following six years.

Nostalgia, plus a carefully planned, months-long launch of character profiles and movie previews fostered interest.

Critics lauded the film’s throwback believe, doses of comedy as well as the performances of Oscar Isaac, John Boyega and newcomers Daisy Ridley. Crowds given an “A” mark in polling by survey company CinemaScore.

Disney took steps to bring more women and girls to the show, including cast Ridley as the star and running advertisements during shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Forty-two percent of the national crowd of the weekend was female, Disney said.

“Force Awakens” could become the highest-grossing film ever, box office analysts said. “Avatar” holds that title with $2.8 billion in worldwide sales.

The wild card is China, the planet ‘s second-biggest film marketplace, where “Force Awakens” opens Jan. 9. The last “Star Wars” film in 2005 amassed only $9 million there. Disney made an attempt to construct buzz, putting 500 miniature Stormtroopers at the Great Wall and reaching a deal to stream the six earlier “Star Wars” movies through video service Tencent.

source: via