Multinational film exhibition
Star Wars EP.7 premiered in Los Angeles at the TCL Chinese Theatre, on December 2015. A white tent stretched along Hollywood Boulevard from Orange Drive to Highland Avenue, hosted more than five thousand guests. The film was released in 12 countries, including European nations releasing it on a Wednesda), the Philippines and Thailand on December 16, 32 countries including the United Kingdom releasing on a Thursday, Mexico and additional European, Asian, African, South American and Oceania countries on December 17, and in North America, Japan, Spain, and Venezuela on December 18, in 3D and IMAX 3D. It was released in India on December 25and in China on January 9 2016.
In North America it had the widest release of December across 4,134 theaters which 3,300 were 3D locations, 392 IMAX screens, 451 premium large format screens, 146 D-Box locations.
Advance ticket sales for the film began on October 19 2015, and were in strong demand, causing online movie ticket sites to crash. Vue Cinemas, on of the UKs largest cinema chains, sold 45,000 tickets in 24 hours. In the United States, the film pre-sold a record-breaking $6.5 million worth of IMAX ticket sales on a single day. IMAX has never previously registered more than $1 million in pre-sales on a single day.In total it sold over $50 million in pre-sales breaking the record. This number was raised to $100 million including $50–60 million in advance ticket sales by December 14.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Star Wars EP.7 via download and Disney Movies Anywhere on April 1, 2016, with a Blu-ray and DVD release on April 5.
In January 2016 it was confirmed that Starz would hold the U.S. premium television rights for The Force Awakens, having been released just before the end of Starz's output deal covering most Disney-released films, which includes releases through the end of 2015. The Force Awakens began broadcasting on all Starz networks on September 10, 2016. The equivalent rights in Canada were held by Netflix.
A Blu-ray 3D collector's edition of the film was released on November 15, 2016. The package includes a Blu-ray 3D, regular Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy of the film, as well as an additional Blu-ray disc for the bonus features. Along with DVD, Blu-Ray and Netlix the show is also played on channels such as Film 4, in December of 2018 channel 4 did a movie marathon of all Star Wars films up to Rouge one.
