Theatrical
The premiere tent, with the film's poster aboveStar Wars: The Force Awakens premiered on December 14, 2015, at the TCL Chinese Theatre, El Capitan Theatre, and Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.[250] A white tent stretched along Hollywood Boulevard from Orange Drive to Highland Avenue, covering the "massive" premiere event that hosted more than five thousand guests.[251] The film was originally scheduled for a mid-2015 release, but in November 2013, it was pushed back to December 18, 2015.[252] It was also released in 3D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats.[253]
In the United States and Canada, it had the widest release of December across 4,134 theaters,[254] of which 3,300 were 3D locations, a record 392 IMAX screens (13 of which were 70mm), 451 premium large format screens, 146 D-Box locations,[255][256] as well as releasing in the Dolby Vision format (high-dynamic range, Rec. 2020 color) in Dolby Cinema.[257] Worldwide, it was released across 940 IMAX theaters, a new record.[256] On December 18, 2015, the film began playing on every IMAX screen in the United States and Canada for four straight weeks up to January 14, 2016. This made it the first film since Warner Bros.' The Hobbit trilogy to receive such a release.[258] The film finally shed some of its IMAX screens with the release of The Revenant (2015) and The Finest Hours (2016) in mid-January 2016.[259]
Advance ticket sales for the film began on October 19, 2015,[260] and were in strong demand, resulting in online movie ticket sites crashing.[261][262] Vue Cinemas, the United Kingdom's third-largest theater chain, sold 45,000 tickets in 24 hours, 10,000 of which were sold in 90 minutes, a record for the theater.[263] 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.[264] In total, it sold over $50 million in pre-sales, breaking the record.[265][266] This number was raised to $100 million including $50–60 million in advance ticket sales by December 14.[266][267] However, not all tickets that were pre-sold were for the film's opening weekend, with Fandango President Paul Yanover saying "people have set aside tickets for screenings in January, weeks after the big opening [...] We have people buying Star Wars [The Force Awakens] into 2016. It's not just an opening-weekend phenomenon."[265] Similarly, the film broke pre-sales records in the UK,[268] Canada,[269] and Germany.[270]
The Force Awakens is the first live-action Star Wars film not to be released theatrically by 20th Century Fox; accordingly the film is not introduced with either that company's logo, or its signature fanfare composed by Alfred Newman.[271] Instead, the film is the first in the series to be distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,[3] and the film is presented with only Lucasfilm's production logo shown silently before the main titles.[272] Disney chairman Bob Iger explained that the decision not to place Disney branding on the film was "for the fans".[273]
A poster from mainland China was criticized for being racist due to shrinking the size of the Black character Finn compared to non-Chinese posters.[274][275][276]
Home media
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Star Wars: The Force Awakens through digital download and Disney Movies Anywhere on April 1, 2016, and on Blu-ray and DVD on April 5. Physical copies include behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, interviews,[277] and additional footage with eight bonus features.[278] In its first week, The Force Awakens sold 669,318 DVDs and 3.4 million Blu-rays as the most sold film on both formats in the United States.[279] That same week, The Force Awakens topped the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, as well as the dedicated Blu-ray sales chart with 83% of unit sales coming from Blu-ray.[280] Overall, The Force Awakens sold 2.1 million DVDs and 5.9 million Blu-rays, adding them up to get a total of 8 million copies, and made $191 million through home media releases.[279]
A Blu-ray 3D "collector's edition" of the film was released on November 15, including all the features of the original home releases, as well as several new bonus features, including new deleted scenes and audio commentary by director J. J. Abrams.[281] 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.[281]
The movie was rereleased on DVD in 2019 as part of the 9-disc "Skywalker Saga" boxed set. It received a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release on March 31, 2020. This 4K release was then included in the 27-disc Skywalker Saga box set on April 20, 2020.[282]
Broadcast syndication
The premium cable network Starz had U.S. broadcast syndication rights for The Force Awakens in January 2016,[283] just before the end of Starz's output deal covering most Disney films through 2015.[284] That September, The Force Awakens began broadcasting on all Starz networks.[285]
