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.

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