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Star Wars: The Force Awakens remains on course to smash box office records worldwide after posting $14.1m from its opening day in a number of European nations on Wednesday, along with an estimated record $50m from Thursday previews in the US.

JJ Abrams’ critically-acclaimed return to a galaxy far, far away has also broken online US retailer Fandango’s all-time record for total ticket sales, even though it only hit US cinemas at 12.01am this morning. Total US presales are estimated at more than $100m, with figures from the UK’s (likely barnstorming) opening day on Thursday yet to come.

Of the countries where The Force Awakens opened early, France led the way with $5.2m, just behind James Bond entry Spectre’s all-time single day record. But Abrams’ film scored the biggest openings of all time in Belgium, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

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Experts at Box Office Mojo believe The Force Awakens could be on course to post a world record $575m-650m total globally over its opening weekend, with the film also likely to break Jurassic World’s $204.6m record for the biggest opening weekend in the US. The only factor which could hold the space opera reboot back is the time of year: fewer children are out of school in mid-December in nations such as the US, the world’s largest box office, and filmgoers often wait until closer to Christmas to catch movies released just prior to the festive period.

A failure to smash opening weekend records would not necessarily knock The Force Awakens off course in its bid to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide. Current record holder Avatar opened to just $77m on the weekend of 18 December 2009, but went on to do huge numbers the following weekend on the way to its $2.78bn total haul.

If social media is anything to go by, The Force Awakens is already way out ahead of Jurassic World. According to The Wrap, 126,167 tweets had been posted about the space fantasy by 11 December, compared to 34,434 for the dinosaur disaster epic a week prior to its debut. On Facebook, The Force Awakens had 15.7m likes three days before it hit cinemas, while Jurassic World had just 5.6m likes.