17 Dec - It's been a long 10-year wait for "Star Wars" fans whom awaited the return of the Space Opera series to the big screen with, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" which finally opens today. With advance movie ticket sales going on sale since 16 November 2015, local cinemas have reported very positive take up rates where opening day tickets were the fastest ones to run out. MBO Cinemas' Director of Marketing & Sales, Cheah Chun Wai said that the advance movie ticket sales for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was one of their best performing ones this year. "Most of the halls in the Klang Valley and state capitals are almost fully occupied." "We're opening more halls and MBO Cinemas will have showtimes every 20 minutes during peak hours for the first week of screening." Apart from cosplay appearances inspired by "Star Wars", MBO Cinemas' "Star Wars" combo set which includes six different Funko Pop! Star Wars figures to choose from, is also one of their hottest promotions of the year with a sizeable number of sales made each day. Not to miss out on the biggest movie event of the year, TGV Cinemas held an all-night-screening event this morning. Several halls and showtimes especially set for the movie from 12AM to 6AM at their Sunway Pyramid location reported a huge turnout. Catering to cinemagoers who wanted to be one of the first to catch the movie on the opening day itself, there were also on-ground activities at TGV Cinemas Sunway Pyramid which included "Star Wars" figurine displays, cosplay, lightsaber performances and a Q&A session where fans can win "Star Wars" merchandise. It is learnt that TGV Cinemas have sold more than 100,000 tickets so far, and most halls screening the movie have high occupancy rates.
Meanwhile, with the grand premiere of the movie held at GSC Cinemas Pavilion KL yesterday evening, many came dressed in their best "Star Wars" inspired outfits as most of the halls were booked to screen the movie for Disney's guests. "In view of the on-going hype, we expect this blockbuster movie to perform well in Malaysia and based on the positive words of mouth from hard core "Star Wars" fans, it could further boost up the ticket sales. We strongly believe it has the potential to become one of the top movies for this year!" said a GSC spokesperson. Added GSC, the hard core "Star Wars" fans were among the first to purchase tickets for the first midnight screening especially at key GSC locations like GSC Mid Valley, GSC 1 Utama and GSC Pavilion KL.
With the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" hype gradually building its momentum since early this year, it is possible that the movie may soon conquer the title of the highest box office grossing movie of all-time in Malaysia. Currently, the spot belongs to "Fast and Furious 7" (released 2 April 2015) which had made a tremendous RM66.9million at the end of its run. Starring the late Paul Walker, the movie made RM27 million over its opening weekend of 2 to 5 April 2015, beating previous record owner "Transformers: Age of Extinction" which made RM21.3 million during its opening weekend since being released on 26 June 2014. Local Tamil movie, "Jagat" is the only new movie with the same release date as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" this week. Therefore, it is expected that as the only Hollywood title in cinemas, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" may draw in majority of the cinema-going crowd with a projected opening weekend collection between RM25 million to RM30 million. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is now showing in cinemas.