Despite losing the North American box office number 1 spot to The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is breaking records upon its release on Saturday.
By opening at $33 million, the film set records for best Disney opening day and the best Saturday opening day.
There were concerns that the film would under-perform in the country due to their lack of familiarity with the Star Wars saga. Disney marketed the film heavily in China to make up for this.
The seventh film in the saga is expected to become the the third-largest worldwide grosser of all time this weekend, passing the $1.67 billion grossed worldwide by Jurassic World last year. Only James Cameron can beat the force as it trails only Avatar at $2.78 billion and Titanic at $2.19 billion.