‘Force Awakens’ sparks advanced ticket sales in Long Beach

Latest Star Wars movie expected to gross $2.7 billion

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Sightings of Darth Vader-clad moviegoers are expected when “The Force Awakens,” the seventh in the “Star Wars” saga of movies, opens Friday at more than 4,100 theaters across the nation, including Long Beach Cinema 4.

Generating more than $100 million in pre-sale tickets, “Force Awakens” is projected by some industry insiders to break box office records, this weekend and beyond. Long Beach’s newly reconstructed movie theater — which reopened last summer after sustaining flood-related damages during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — now allows patrons to purchase advanced tickets and reserve seats. Tickets for “Force Awakens” went on sale at the theater two weeks ago and first-run forecasts are bright.

“We released the tickets as soon as we were able and people have been buying consistently,” said Paula Lewis, general manager at Cinema 4. “We’re expecting a large crowd.”

Total ticket sales at Long Beach Cinemas for the new movie were not immediately available.

“Force Awakens,” which premiered Monday in Los Angeles, was scheduled to play in previews across the United States and Canada on Thursday. Cinema 4 had an 8 p.m. preview scheduled, and the theater will be among 3,300 nationwide to offer the PG-13 rated film in 3-D.

The movie, which runs for two hours and 16 minutes, is the first “Star Wars” production since “Revenge of the Sith” in 2005, and the first without the saga’s creator, George Lucas, who sold Star Wars and Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion in 2012.

“In this continuation of the ‘Star Wars’ saga, balance returns to the Force as the First Order, emerging from the ashes of the Empire, clashes with the Resistance, which includes scrappy newcomers as well as heroes from the former Rebel Alliance,” reads an synopsis of the movie on the theater’s website.

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