Star Wars: The Force Awakens has sold more tickets on Fandango than any other movie of all time, and it’s taken the #1 spot for Thursday night viewings from Harry Potter. Why is Star Wars still so popular with an audience that most likely is unfamiliar with the films?
The first Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, I know I wasn’t alive when it came out, and neither are 99% of the people reading this article. The last Star Wars film to hit theaters was in 2008, and was eviscerated by fans and critics alike, so why exactly is Star Wars: The Force Awakens smashing box office records?
Has everyone just jumped on the Star Wars bandwagon, or has Disney’s insane promotion for Star Wars: The Force Awakens created such buzz that everyone on the planet has to see the movie? These are some interesting questions that come up with a franchise that hasn’t released a good movie since 1983.
And then came not only the worst three Star Wars movies to date, but possibly three of the worst movies ever released when Episodes I, II, and III hit theaters. The track record for Star Wars in the mind of the majority of people alive that go to the movies right now should be fairly awful.
Studios mainly focus on 13-28 year-olds, which means this group of people which are reportedly the majority going to see this particular movie most likely haven’t seen many of these films, and if they have it’s possible they didn’t like at least half of them.
We’d say Star Wars: The Force Awakens is an anomaly, but it’s not, it looked like a great film when it was being promoted, and it ended up being a pretty great film. Was it similar to Episode IV, sure, but it looked amazing (especially in IMAX) and the new cast members brought a great deal to the franchise.
Maybe it’s further proof that Star Wars transcends all age brackets and movie fans, and whether Disney aimed the film at teens to 20 somethings, it still grabbed the older crowds due to the fact that actors like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher were involved in the film.
Although, Carrie Fisher was only seen briefly in one trailer, and Mark Hamill wasn’t seen at all (at least his face) during the film’s promotion. So, it’s still interesting to see such a wide range of moviegoers heading to the theater to achieve such a phenomenal turnout this weekend.
In a time where Marvel’s latest movie seems to always be the one smashing records, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is literally doubling what we’ve been seeing from Marvel in terms of box office and ticket sales.
Star Wars has always been popular, as fathers passed VHS tapes down to their sons, and mothers passed DVDs down to their daughters, but this is truly an exciting thing to see The Force Awakens be so successful with all types of audiences. Sure, there’s more people on the planet now, but we’ve actually seen a huge dip in ticket sales in the last few years due to Netflix and other popular streaming services.
Fans came out to support Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a huge way in its opening weekend, and it’ll be interesting to find out exactly why the average moviegoer also joined in on the fun as well when the dust settles. All we know for certain right now is that Disney is thinking they got a steal when they purchased the rights to Star Wars from creator George Lucas for a cool $4 billion in 2012.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks like it’s set to take in up to $145 million Friday, and achieve a total of $240 million for the weekend. This would give it the largest opening day record ever, and break Jurassic World’s weekend total record of $208.4 million set just six months ago.
Maybe director J.J. Abrams is using Jedi mind tricks on us already: “You want to see this movie.”
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