Skip to main content

Star Wars breaks another ticket sales record

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 GamesAvengers: Age of UltronThe 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

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
The 10 best lightsaber duels in Star Wars, ranked
Luke Skywalker lunges towards Darth Vader during their lightsaber fight on Cloud City.

Star Wars has contributed countless indelible moments and images to our popular culture, but if there’s one artifact that is most intrinsic to the Galaxy Far, Far Away, it’s the fantastical weapon of the Jedi Knights, the lightsaber. From the very first time audiences saw Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader cross glowing, humming swords aboard the Death Star in 1977, we’ve been absolutely obsessed, and storytellers across multiple media and nearly half a century have been only too happy to indulge our craving for increasingly elaborate lightsaber duels.
Lightsaber fights come in all shapes and sizes, from emotional one-on-one bouts in live-action to wild animated free-for-alls, and selecting our 10 favorites from the franchise to date was no easy task. There are a lot of metrics by which to judge — the excitement of the action itself, how it’s shot, the story behind it, the use of environment, even the music to which it’s set — but the cream of the crop are those duels that either dominate one category or harmoniously balance each one. Will your favorites make the list? You’ll find we’re full of surprises …

10. The Ronin vs. the Bandit Leader (The Duel - Visions, season 1, episode 1)

Read more
Like Ahsoka? Watch these 7 Star Wars Rebels episodes
Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano aboard her shuttle in "Ahsoka."

The next chapter of the Star Wars: Rebels saga has come with the premiere of the Disney+ series, Ahsoka. Set years after the disappearance of Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn, the show follows Ahsoka Tano when she seeks them both out as she tries to prevent another war with the remnants of the Galactic Empire.

Since this is a sequel series, some audiences may have some catching up to do. But if they like Ahsoka so far, they should check out these seven episodes of Star Wars: Rebels.
The Siege of Lothal (Parts 1 and 2)

Read more
The 10 best Star Wars action scenes, ranked
Luke Skywalker faces Darth Vade in The Empire Strikes Back.

If there's one thing that Star Wars does better than any other space opera, it's action. Since the debut of the original Star Wars film in 1977, the franchise has continuously upped its action game and put other franchises to shame. This week, the legacy continues with Ahsoka, a new Star Wars spinoff series heading to Disney+. If the trailers are any indication, fans are in for more lightsaber action and intrigue.

When considering the greatest action scenes in Star Wars, we decided that everything in the movies, the live-action series, and the animated series was fair game. However, the franchise's epic space battles have been left out of this list because we wanted to focus on the more visceral action scenes between two or more characters. After all, that is where the greatest drama can be found, as you'll soon see in our roundup of the 10 best Star Wars action scenes.
10. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith

Read more