The new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, has obliterated records for advance ticket sales on both sides of the Atlantic ahead of the European premiere of JJ Abrams’ film in London’s Leicester Square tonight.
The new episode has now grossed more than $100m in US presales before a single paying filmgoer has seen it, while in the UK the total number of ticket sales has breached 1m for the first time ever.
In London workers are preparing to transform Leicester Square into a Star Wars extravaganza across three cinemas, the Odeon, Empire and Vue, with the red carpet expected to snake around the entire pedestrianised area rather than just one side, as is standard. The main guests, including original trilogy stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, along with newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, are expected to attend the Empire, which recently installed Imax’s latest laser technology.
Studio Disney will be hoping to live up to the hype generated by Monday night’s world premiere in Los Angeles, which also took place across three cinemas on either side of Hollywood Boulevard. London is playing host to the movie’s European debut because Abrams’ movie was largely based here, at Pinewood Studios, during filming.
Odeon, the UK’s largest chain with more than 100 cinemas nationwide, has reported selling 500,000 presale tickets, while the third-largest chain, Vue Cinemas, has reported selling more than 355,000.
Off the back of presales, experts are already predicting that The Force Awakens will smash the all-time UK box office record of £103m held by James Bond movie Skyfall since 2012. “The numbers far exceed anything we’ve seen before for any movie in the UK,” Phil Clap, CEO of the UK Cinema Association, told the Hollywood Reporter.
Abrams’ film is also expected to challenge Avatar, which grossed $2.7bn in 2010, for the mantle of highest-grossing movie of all time.
