Star Wars: The Force Awakens

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrived in theaters on the 18th of December 2015, carrying a weight that almost no film in history had to bear. Thirty-two years had passed since Return of the Jedi closed out the original trilogy. A generation had grown up, started families, and still felt the pull of a galaxy far, far away. When the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in October 2012, the clock started ticking on what would become the most anticipated film in decades.

  The questions surrounding this film were unlike any others in Hollywood. Could J. J. Abrams rekindle something that George Lucas himself had walked away from? Who were these new characters, Rey and Finn and Poe Dameron, and where did they come from? And lurking behind everything: what happened to Luke Skywalker?

  The film that emerged carried a $536 million net budget, making it by one measure the most expensive film ever made. It earned $2.07 billion at the worldwide box office. Critics gave it a standing ovation. And George Lucas publicly compared Disney to "white slavers".

  None of those numbers quite capture what The Force Awakens actually was: a high-wire act between honoring the past and building something new, pulled off in front of the largest audience cinema had ever assembled.

• 2. The Long Road to Production

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  Lucas had discussed ideas for a sequel trilogy many times after Return of the Jedi, but publicly denied any intention to make one. The sale of Lucasfilm to Disney in October 2012 changed everything. Within months, development began on a seventh episode in what Lucas had long called the nine-part Skywalker Saga.

  The original screenplay was written by Michael Arndt, who was also asked to draft story treatments for the films that would follow. Arndt worked alongside Lawrence Kasdan, Simon Kinberg, Pablo Hidalgo, and Kiri Hart in a writers room to plan the trilogy as a whole. One of Arndt's central problems was Luke Skywalker himself. In early drafts, Luke appeared midway through the story, and Arndt found that every time Luke entered the scene, he "just took it over" and made the audience stop caring about the new characters. The solution was to remove Luke from the main action entirely and make him the object of the search rather than a participant in it.

  Arndt worked on the script for eight months before concluding he needed eighteen more months to finish it properly. That was more time than Disney or Abrams was prepared to give. His departure was announced on the 24th of October 2013. Kasdan and Abrams took over the same day, planning the story while walking through Santa Monica, New York City, Paris, and London. They completed their first draft in six weeks.

  For the director's chair, names like David Fincher, Brad Bird, Jon Favreau, and Guillermo del Toro were all considered. Bird was reportedly the top choice but had to step back because of his commitment to Tomorrowland. Matthew Vaughn was a serious early contender, even dropping out of X-Men: Days of Future Past to make himself available. After a suggestion from Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy approached J. J. Abrams, who was named director in January 2013. Kasdan personally worked to convince Abrams, who had initially turned the job down.

• 3. Casting a New Galaxy

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  Open auditions were held in the United Kingdom and the United States in November 2013, with the characters listed simply as "Rachel" and "Thomas" to protect secrecy. Every actor who tested signed a strict nondisclosure agreement barring them, their agents, and their publicists from saying a word.

  Daisy Ridley was cast by February 2014. Adam Driver, who had been hesitant because he was "leery on big movies" and worried characters in large productions get sacrificed to spectacle, came around once he understood the complicated nature of Kylo Ren. His deal was worked out by the end of February, arranged around his schedule on the television series Girls. John Boyega entered talks after withdrawing from a Jesse Owens biopic. According to Boyega, it was Tom Cruise who introduced him to Abrams. Lupita Nyong'o entered discussions in March, with Oscar Isaac and Andy Serkis following shortly after.

  Among the actors who auditioned but did not ultimately appear in the film were Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Joel Kinnaman for the role of Kylo Ren, and Saoirse Ronan, Elizabeth Olsen, Eiza Gonzalez, Courtney Eaton, and Ronan herself for the role of Rey.

  The returning cast brought their own negotiations. Carrie Fisher agreed to come back after being impressed with the pitch for the new trilogy. Mark Hamill was assigned a personal trainer and a nutritionist at the producers' request so he would resemble an older version of Luke. Fisher was also assigned the same support but declined to change her weight. Anthony Daniels, who was initially approached to contribute only his voice as C-3PO, chose to reprise the role physically, which meant the production team had to build an entirely new C-3PO costume to accommodate him.

  Denis Lawson, who had played Wedge Antilles across the original trilogy, turned down the chance to return, telling the production it would have "bored" him.

• 4. Shooting Across Two Hemispheres

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  Principal photography began on the 16th of May 2014, in the desert around Liwa Oasis in Abu Dhabi, where a second unit had already been filming in secret. Large-scale sets were constructed on location in the Emirates, including a shuttle-like spacecraft, a large tower, and a market area. Explosives were used to create a blast crater on set.

  Production moved to Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, in June. It was there that the production suffered its most serious setback. Harrison Ford fractured his leg when a hydraulic door on the Millennium Falcon set fell on him. According to Abrams, Ford's ankle bent to a 90-degree angle. Ford's son Ben indicated the injury would likely require a plate and screws. Filming was suspended for two weeks. What was not known at the time was that Abrams himself fractured a vertebra in his back trying to help lift the door off Ford. He kept the injury to himself for more than a month. In October 2016, the Disney subsidiary Foodles Production (UK) Ltd was fined $1.95 million for two health and safety breaches connected to the accident.

  On the 28th of July 2014, shooting moved to Skellig Michael, a remote island off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland, where Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley filmed over three days. The Lake District in northwest England provided landscape shots for the planet Takodana. The former RAF Greenham Common base in Berkshire served as the site for set constructions of several spaceships. Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire was used for additional scenes.

  For the cameras, cinematographer Daniel Mindel shot primarily on 35mm Kodak 5219 film. Panavision constructed new anamorphic lenses intended to replicate the look of the lenses from the original trilogy, while IMAX sequences used the same lenses developed for Wally Pfister on The Dark Knight. Principal photography concluded on the 3rd of November 2014.

• 5. Practical Effects and the Score

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  Kathleen Kennedy stated early that The Force Awakens would favor real locations and physical models over computer-generated imagery, a deliberate return to the visual language of the original films. The droid BB-8 was built as a physical prop by special effects artist Neal Scanlan and operated live on set alongside the actors, developed by Disney Research. The Holochess sequence was created using stop-motion animation overseen by Phil Tippett and Tippett Studio, the same technique used in the original film.

  John Williams, who had composed the score for every previous episodic Star Wars film, was confirmed in July 2013 to return. He began work on The Force Awakens in December 2014 and was working through the film reels on a daily basis by June 2015. Recording sessions began on the 1st of June 2015, at the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, with William Ross conducting most of the sessions. A 90-piece orchestra recorded 175 minutes of music across 12 sessions over roughly five months. Williams composed a theme for Supreme Leader Snoke performed by a 24-voice men's chorus. Gustavo Dudamel conducted the opening and end title music at Williams' request. Recording was completed on the 14th of November 2015.

  The score did not survive post-production intact. When Abrams re-edited the film, nearly an hour of Williams' recorded material was discarded, modified, or re-recorded. The final Williams score still runs more than two hours.

  The film's cantina scene required separate handling. Williams told Abrams he preferred not to compose music for that sequence, wanting to concentrate on the orchestral score. Unknown to Lin-Manuel Miranda, this created an opening. Abrams had met Miranda at a performance of Hamilton on Broadway, where Miranda had jokingly offered to write cantina music if it were ever needed. Abrams called in that offer, and the two collaborated on the scene's music over two months.

• 6. The Marketing Machine

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  On the 28th of November 2014, Lucasfilm released an 88-second teaser trailer that screened in selected cinemas across the United States and Canada before going online. In its first week on YouTube, the trailer generated 58.2 million views.

  A second teaser, running two minutes, debuted at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California, on the 16th of April 2015. Kathleen Kennedy described the room of almost eight thousand people as leaping to their feet and roaring in a way she compared to a rock concert. Within 24 hours, the trailer was viewed over 88 million times. A third and final trailer debuted during the halftime break of Monday Night Football in October 2015 and received 128 million views within 24 hours, with 16 million of those coming from the broadcast itself.

  Deadline Hollywood estimated the media value of the marketing campaign at $175 million; by a later accounting by The Guardian, costs alongside home media revenues had climbed to $423 million. Vanity Fair became the first magazine to release a dedicated cover issue, published on the 7th of May 2015, with cast photographs taken by Annie Leibovitz.

  the 4th of September 2015, was designated "Force Friday", the official launch date for all the film's merchandise. Starting at 12:01 am, fans could purchase toys, books, and clothing at Disney Stores and retailers worldwide. Among the products was a remote-controlled BB-8 made by Sphero, a company that had met with Disney CEO Bob Iger in a private meeting in July 2014, where they were shown on-set photos of the droid before its public unveiling. Many retailers, including Toys R Us, were unable to meet demand.

  Advance ticket sales opened on the 19th of October 2015, and were strong enough to crash major ticketing websites. In the United Kingdom, Vue Cinemas sold 45,000 tickets in 24 hours, with 10,000 of those sold in just 90 minutes. In the United States, a single day of IMAX pre-sales reached $6.5 million, a number that had never before crossed $1 million in a single day. Total pre-sales exceeded $100 million before the film opened.

• 7. Records and Reception

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  The Force Awakens premiered on the 14th of December 2015, at the TCL Chinese Theatre, the El Capitan Theatre, and the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with a white tent stretching along Hollywood Boulevard from Orange Drive to Highland Avenue hosting more than five thousand guests.

  On opening day, the film earned $119.1 million in the United States and Canada, the first time any film had crossed $100 million in a single day. Its opening weekend reached $247.9 million, 19% larger than the previous record set by The Avengers at $207 million. The film sold close to 110 million tickets in the United States and Canada overall. After 16 days, it crossed $700 million domestically, a mark previously reached only by Avatar. On the 6th of January 2016, it became the highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada, accomplishing that in 20 days. It was the 24th film in cinema history to gross $1 billion worldwide, reaching that mark faster than any film before it, in 12 days. After 53 days, it passed $2 billion worldwide, only the third film in history to do so. The net budget of $536 million makes it the most expensive film ever made on that measure, and Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit at $780.1 million.

  Critics responded with nearly unanimous enthusiasm. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a beautiful, thrilling, joyous, surprising, and heart-thumping adventure". Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph said the film achieved its goal of reconnecting the series with its past "both immediately and joyously". Not all criticism was positive; some reviewers found the story too closely modeled on the original 1977 film, with RogerEbert.com's Gerardo Valero arguing the film had "plagiarized" A New Hope.

  George Lucas was candid in a the 24th of December 2015, interview with Charlie Rose, comparing the sale of Lucasfilm to a divorce and criticizing what he called the film's "retro feel". In a 2019 memoir, Disney chairman Bob Iger recalled that Lucas "couldn't even hide his disappointment" and said after seeing the film, "there's nothing new." Lucas preferred Rian Johnson's sequel The Last Jedi and the anthology film Rogue One. At the 88th Academy Awards, the film received nominations for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects.