In June of 1977, Star Wars premiered at Hollywood's Chinese Theatre. Thirty-eight years later, The Force Awakens is premiering in actual Chinese theaters. Three weeks after J.J. Abrams' blockbuster hit debuted to nostalgic cheers (and happy tears) around the world, the latest Star Wars flick will finally open in China tomorrow.

But while The Force Awakens has smashed seemingly every box office record in its path, China may prove to be a more challenging market. George Lucas' original trilogy wasn't screened in theaters when the films were first released, and most Chinese citizens don't have fond memories of them—let alone pass that nostalgia on to their kids. Sure, analysts say, Chinese viewers *know *the franchise, but that doesn't mean they'll flock repeatedly to theaters, leading to record-breaking numbers, like they did in the U.S.

Yet for Disney, like the rest of Hollywood, the Chinese market has become increasingly important. It's the second biggest movie industry in the world, and will likely become the biggest in the coming years. For The Force Awakens to surpass $2 billion globally, joining an exclusive club of international mega-successes *Avatar *and Titanic, it will also need to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in China—even if the anticipation might not be what it has been in the rest of the world.

The question isn't whether *The Force Awakens *will make money. It will. But some analysts say that they don't expect the latest *Star Wars *film to outperform Chinese-box-office hits like *Avengers: Age of Ultron *and *The Fast and Furious 7 (China's biggest-grossing U.S. movie of all time). *And sure, moderate success in China may look like a flop, but for Disney, that might not matter; the movie is an opening sortie in the battle for long-haul brand development.

Battling the Past

In the U.S. and Europe, *Star Wars' *huge success is bolstered by the fact that fans of the original trilogy are still fans. “Part of the box office success is the accumulated cultural memories. Parents see it and they bring their kids,” says Michael Berry, a professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “In China, it had a very, very different history.”

The first Star Wars film hit theaters around the world in 1977. At the time, China was emerging from its Cultural Revolution, and Western films were banned as a matter. That ban was lifted in 1994 with Harrison Ford's *The Fugitive; *by that time, though, not only had the original trilogy come and gone without the opportunity to build a loyal fan base, but its special effects already looked outdated.

Despite this history, Star* Wars* has since gained some Chinese superfans. “The powers of change in China have been so powerful,” Berry says. “Starting in the ’90s, bootleg DVDs were pervasive, so a lot of people were belatedly catching up with Star Wars and other western culture.” Meanwhile, the prequels screened to moderate audiences in China in the late '90s and early ’00s, and each film ranked in the top ten films of the year.

Disney profits off childhood nostalgia. So, in a country like China, how does Disney retroactively create that? The answer may surprise you: marketing. (J/K about the surprise part.) The company has made a series of calculated moves in recent months to create buzz around the new film: Buildings in Shanghai have been lit up with red and blue to look like competing lightsabers; 500 stormtroopers amassed atop the Great Wall of China; and last year Disney and 20th Century Fox struck a deal with Chinese internet giant Tencent to let China residents stream the entire *Star Wars *saga online.

The company also signed pop singer Lu Han,the so-called Justin Bieber of China, to release an original promotional song ("The Force Inside") and be an "honorary Jedi" ambassador of The Force Awakens, even though he isn't in the film—a move that upset some diehard Chinese Star Wars fans who lashed out at Disney and the pop star's fans on social media.

May The Force Be With The Future

Even with its marketing campaign, analysts are skeptical that *The Force Awakens *can beat out other big budget Hollywood films like Furious 7. Ticket pre-sales for the film, which raked in more than $100 million in the U.S., have been relatively modest, lower than they were for other big blockbuster successes, says China Film Insider industry analyst Jonathan Papish.

“I would be surprised if it sees a really good result,” says Stanley Rosen, a professor of political science at USC’s US-China Institute, who studies how Hollywood movies have been received in China. “I think it'll be tough to sell.” The Force Awakens, Rosen points, will be opening against current China box-office champ Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, a theatrical run of the BBC's TV series. (While *Star Wars *stars like Daisey Ridley and John Boyega aren't boldface names in China, Chinese audiences apparently love them some Benedict Cumberbatch.)

Not only will Star Wars be competing in the coming weeks with other Western productions, but it will also compete with local ones. In recent years, mainland China has seen a huge resurgence in its local film industry, and recent results in Hong Kong—where the Star Wars movies weren't banned, and where The Force Awakens opened in December—bear that out. The last week of December, The Force Awakens was outperformed by local productionIp Man 3 (the star of which, Donnie Yen, will also appear in upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One).

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Yet, while some analysts say that *Star Wars *will rake in a measly $100-200 million for its entire run in China, putting it far below films like *Transformers: Age of Extinction, *others say that the pessimism is overblown. “The expectations are all over the place,” says Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Rentrak. “It's going to have a strong debut. There's no way if you're a film fan—and there are many—and you have a movie that just broke the record for biggest North American gross, that you're not going to be interested.”

Disney will be watching the exact box office figure, but it won't matter for their long term goals. The company already has plans to open a new Disneyland theme park in Shanghai, and along with Donnie Yen has cast huge Chinese star Jiang Wen in the upcoming Star Wars* *films. "This is a longer term play," says Jonathan Landreth, editor of the website China Film Insider. "They're hoping to prime the pumps." Disney is looking to the future—and in that future, China has a leading role.