‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Breaks Fandango’s All-Time Ticketing Record; MovieTickets Sales Still Soaring

Industry sources have told Deadline that pre-sales at this point across all ticketing services for Force Awakens are estimated at $100M.

Force Awakens Fandango sales beat the total tickets ever sold for Jurassic World (the company’s previous champ), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Hunger Games.

“’The Force Awakens is a genuine cultural phenomenon,” said Fandango President Paul Yanover in a statement. “The extraordinary ticketing demand is truly unprecedented. It is Fandango’s top-selling movie of all time, even before it has even hit theater screens. It’s great to see that all fans can enjoy the ‘Star Wars’ experience, as our theater partners continue to add new screens and new showtimes every day.”

“We are obviously very encouraged by the record-breaking presales for Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’” added Dave Hollis, Disney’s EVP of theatrical distribution, “but there are literally millions of tickets available for this weekend, and exhibitors have a lot of flexibility in terms of capacity and increasing the number of shows based on demand.”

Per a Fandango survey of more than 1K Star Wars fans 65% indicated that the film is a definite part of their holiday plans with family and friends while 63% said they’re planning to see the film multiples times in the theater.

Fandango provides online ticketing services for Regal Cinemas, AMC Theatres, Cinemark, Carmike and every major chain across the country.

Movio, a separate service that monitors moviegoing trends, analyzed that 40% of those who bought advance tickets are actually see The Force Awakens tonight, and that 2D is the preferred way they want to see it, despite the fact that Disney is showing Episode VII in more than 3,300 locations.

UPDATE 11:55AM: More records set by Star Wars: The Force Awakens – and the film hasn’t even opened yet. Fandango says that the J.J. Abrams film has broken the company’s record for the most tickets sold by any title during its entire theatrical run; an anomaly considering that this feat was accomplished during pre-sales. This is even better news than what Fandango told us a couple of days about their staggering, record-setting Force Awakens pre-sales. In addition, MovieTickets.com continues to report that 93% of all its tickets sales in the last 24 hours are for Force Awakens. Of those snapping up tickets, 68% are males while close to 32% are females. The average age for a Force Awakens ticket buyer is 44. In regards to the format that MovieTicket buyers plan to watch Force Awakens: 60% will see it in 2D, 23% in 3D and close to 17% will take in Imax screenings.
Source: Deadline