‘Star Wars’ awakens box office records

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is already on course to smash Irish box office records, after cinemas here reported one of their busiest ever weeks for online bookings.

A number of early screenings of the eagerly awaited movie, which opens here on December 17, have already sold out, despite advanced ticket sales only being released last Monday.

Online bookings for the seventh film in the sci-fi series opened four days ago to coincide with the release of the full trailer for the new movie — which has already notched up more than 36m views on YouTube alone.