TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - As expected, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is breaking movie records around the country.
The movie set the Christmas box office record bringing in almost $50 million dollars. The previous Christmas record was set by Sherlock Holmes in 2009, with just over $24 million on the holiday.
Star Wars also helped make 2015 the most successful Christmas at the box office overall with more than $100 million brought in. That beats out the previous record set back in 2009 with about $86 million when Avatar was in its second week and Sherlock Holmes opened.
In addition to box office records, the movie is setting records locally. Roadhouse Cinemas' co-owner, Vincent Mast, says they set an attendance record yesterday, and for the past week. More than 10,000 people came to the theater over the week leading up to Christmas.
The theater even created a Star Wars related breakfast menu while they have early shows. Roadhouse owners expect the success to continue.
"The rest of this weekend, we're going to continue setting records primarily because of Star Wars, but the other movies as well are looking like they are big draws too," said Mast.
He added, that their Star Wars showings are almost sold out for the next week leading up to the new year, but that is partially because they have reserved seating.
Media analysts at Rentrak say Star Wars could be the fastest movie ever to make $1 billion worldwide, expecting it to surpass that milestone no later than Sunday.
