Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Did You Know?

• The film's plot begins thirty years after the Battle of Endor, with the First Order having risen from the fallen Galactic Empire.
• Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa.
• The character Maz Kanata is a centuries-old and perceptive alien who owns a castle on the forest planet Takodana.

Production

Development of a seventh entry in the Skywalker Saga began after the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in October 2012. George Lucas, the franchise creator, served as a creative consultant in early story meetings and provided rough story treatments for Episodes VII–IX, which were read only by Kathleen Kennedy, Bob Iger, Alan F. Horn, and Kevin A. Mayer. Lucas later stated that Disney had discarded his story ideas and that he had no further involvement; his son Jett noted that Lucas was "very torn" about selling the rights. The first screenplay was written by Michael Arndt, who also wrote story treatments for the following installments. Arndt participated in a writers room with Simon Kinberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Pablo Hidalgo, and Kiri Hart to plan the trilogy. Early drafts included Luke Skywalker appearing midway through the film, but Arndt found that Luke's presence overwhelmed the narrative, so the writers decided to use him as a plot device who would not appear until the final scene. Arndt also developed backstory elements for returning characters, such as Leia's role in rebuilding the Republic and the revelation of her parentage. Principal photography began in April 2014 and concluded the following November, taking place at Pinewood Studios in England and on location in Abu Dhabi, Iceland, and Ireland.

Marketing

Disney backed The Force Awakens with extensive marketing campaigns; Deadline Hollywood estimated the media value at $175 million, and The Guardian later reported costs alongside home media revenues had risen to $423 million. On November 28, 2014, Lucasfilm released an 88-second teaser trailer that was screened in selected cinemas across the United States and Canada and worldwide in December 2014, and also on YouTube and the iTunes Store, generating 58.2 million views on YouTube in its first week. Critics compared the footage favorably to the original trilogy, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it "perfectly potent nostalgia" and Empire noting the continuity with the first films. On December 11, 2014, Abrams and Kennedy released a series of eight mock Topps trading cards revealing character names. A second teaser trailer, lasting two minutes, was shown at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California on April 16, 2015; Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy described the reaction as "staggering" and said the room of nearly eight thousand people leapt to their feet and roared. The trailer was viewed over 88 million times within the first 24 hours of release and showed many new characters as well as the first footage of Chewbacca and Han Solo.

Release

The Force Awakens had its premiere on December 14, 2015, at three Hollywood venues: the TCL Chinese, El Capitan, and Dolby Theatres. A large white tent stretched along Hollywood Boulevard to cover the event, which hosted over five thousand guests. Originally planned for a mid-2015 debut, the film's release was postponed to December 18, 2015. It was shown in 3D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D, and 4DX. In the U.S. and Canada, it opened in 4,134 theaters, the widest December release ever, including 3,300 3D venues, a record 392 IMAX screens, 451 premium large format screens, 146 D-Box locations, and Dolby Vision in Dolby Cinema. Worldwide, it played on 940 IMAX screens, another record. Starting December 18, it occupied every IMAX screen in the U.S. and Canada for four weeks. Advance ticket sales launched on October 19, 2015, and demand was so high that online ticket sites crashed. In the UK, Vue Cinemas sold 45,000 tickets in 24 hours, a chain record. In the U.S., single-day IMAX pre-sales hit $6.5 million, far exceeding the previous $1 million cap. Total pre-sales surpassed $50 million, later reaching $100 million with advance sales by December 14.

Reception

Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed $936.7 million in the United States and Canada and $1.132 billion in other countries for a worldwide total of $2.07 billion, making it the highest-grossing film of 2015 and the third highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release. Box Office Mojo estimated that the film sold close to 110 million tickets in the United States and Canada. It earned 8.6% of the total 2015 releases in the United States and Canada, second only to Titanic's 8.8% in 1997. It was the 24th film to gross $1 billion worldwide and the fastest to do so, achieving the mark in 12 days, and the third film to surpass $2 billion worldwide, doing so on its 53rd day. Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $780.1 million. Analysts noted that box office receipts must be adjusted for inflation when compared to predecessors, and that the first Star Wars film made more when adjusted. The film was very successful in the United States and Canada but did not achieve the same success in many overseas markets such as India, other parts of Asia, and Latin America, attributed to it being "a retro film" and the franchise's traditional lack of resonance in China.