"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is aiming for a huge opening weekend when it debuts on December 18, and the flick is already the hottest ticket in town, breaking online sales records and crashing a few websites along the way.After the latest "Force Awakens" trailer dropped on Monday night, sites like Fandango and Movie Tickets reported heavy traffic and lots of problems. According to The Hollywood Reporter, some Fandango users were met with a "site maintenance" message, while Movie Tickets customers were told, "Web server is returning an unknown error."
In a statement on Tuesday, Fandango said those issues were due to "unprecedented ticket demand," and reported that "The Force Awakens" completely shattered its first-day showings sales record, selling eight times as many tickets as previous champ "The Hunger Games."
The Wall Street Journal reported even more jaw-dropping numbers:
The U.K., which opened up advance ticket sales a day earlier than the U.S., is also reporting ridiculous demand -- and plenty of crashed ticketing websites -- for "The Force Awakens." The word "unprecedented" was also thrown around across the pond.AMC, the nation's second largest theater chain and the biggest that sells tickets directly on its own website, beat its previous single-day ticket sales record by a factor of 10 and has sold out more than 1,000 shows, a spokesman said.
Movietickets.com reported that 95% of the tickets it has sold in the last 24 hours were for "The Force Awakens." Tickets to the earliest screenings, many of which quickly sold out, are white hot on eBay, where one seller is asking $10,000 for a pair.
And that word is an important one for box office watchers: If demand is, indeed, so unprecedented right now, that can only mean that it will continue to grow as "The Force Awakens"'s release date approaches. Could it outpace current domestic and international opening weekend champ, "Jurassic World," which raked in $209 million and $511 million, respectively, when it bowed back in June? It's looking pretty likely right now.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" hits theaters on December 18. You may want to get your tickets now, before any more websites crash.
[via: The Hollywood Reporter, The Wall Street Journal]
Photo credit: Disney
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