[Review] ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Is a Hit at the Presale Box Office

John Boyega and Daisy Ridley in the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” trailer that had its premiere on Monday night. Lucasfilm 

  On Monday evening, Disney and its LucasFilm unit signaled the start of advance ticket sales for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with a more-than-two-minute trailer for the film during the “Monday Night Football” broadcast on the Disney-owned ESPN.

By Tuesday morning, the studio was neck-deep in sales — never mind some digital misfires — for a hotly anticipated fantasy sequel that will not officially open in domestic theaters until Dec. 18.

No domestic sales tally was available early on Tuesday, though sites like Fandango and the AMC Theaters ticketing portal were, for a time, overwhelmed by demand, indicating a powerful response.

In a statement, AMC acknowledged an online slowdown caused by what it called “unprecedented volume.” But the chain said it had beaten its previous single-day advance sales record by a factor of 10, and had sold out more than 1,000 shows nationwide. (It also said opening night seats were still available, including some at theaters that will stay open for 24 hours to accommodate demand.) Fandango said in a statement that its sales traffic surged to seven times the typical peak level, driving first-day sales to a record level eight times as high as those for its previous record-holder, “The Hunger Games,” in 2012. The site did not disclose the number of tickets sold for either film.

In Europe, the Vue Entertainment service said it had sold a record 45,000 advance tickets in Britain in 24 hours. Online tickets are being sold in advance at typical movie prices, with premiums charged for 3-D viewing, and with some services adding convenience fees. There were already reports of scalped tickets on eBay.

If the digital glitches were overcome quickly, initial advance sales appeared poised to push past those for “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” from Disney and its Marvel Studios unit, in early March. “Age of Ultron” took in about $1.4 billion worldwide, and $459 million at the domestic box office, after its release two months later, placing it sixth on the all-time global box-office chart (using figures not adjusted for ticket price inflation).

Imax Corporation, which operates giant-screen theaters, said its domestic theaters sold an estimated $6.5 million in tickets in less than 24 hours. Its previous record for one-day advance sales, the company said, was less than $1 million.

The “Star Wars” trailer unveiled on Monday followed two earlier teasers that had whetted the appetite of fans more with snippets of action imagery — yes, there are lightsabers, Chewbacca still groans — than with clues about the narrative behind this seventh installment. The latest film in the series, the first installment of which came out in 1977, is directed by J. J. Abrams.

The new trailer provided more information, as it showed a new generation of characters, played by young actors like John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, coming to terms with what to them is a secret history of warfare between Force-filled Jedi warriors and their antagonists from the dark side. “It’s true, all of it,” says Harrison Ford, back as an older, perhaps creakier, Han Solo.

Disney said the trailer, posted widely online, would immediately begin showing in theaters.

For months, Disney’s greatest marketing challenge has been to keep anticipation for “The Force Awakens” — which comes 10 years after the last “Star Wars” episode — from peaking too soon. At the Comic-Con International convention in July, studio marketers took a decidedly low-key approach. Mr. Abrams and some new cast members, including Mr. Boyega, appeared at the convention.

But they kept details sparse, and the superfans who showed up expecting a full-sized mock-up of the film’s new Millennium Falcon spaceship had to make do with other attractions.

Disney’s decision to sell advance tickets was in line with the current Hollywood strategy, which has relied on the Fandango online sales service and other mechanisms to post early sales for highly anticipated blockbusters like “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” from Warner Bros. and its New Line unit, or “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2,” from Lionsgate. (That film, to be released on Nov. 20, began selling tickets on Oct. 1.)

The studio eschewed the more aggressive selling tactics that some in the film business had predicted. It did not, for instance, try to bypass existing ticket sellers in favor of a studio-backed service, nor did it demand a much higher percentage of sales from theater owners.

One of the next steps in Disney’s multigenre rollout for the film will involve the release of a video game, Star Wars Battlefront, from Electronic Arts. That is expected to arrive in stores on Nov. 17 — a date that appears calculated to be close enough to the film’s release to have gamer fans at maximum excitement.

Signs of a pandemonium have been appearing for months.

“Things here have been hopping since the teaser trailer was shown in April,” Stephen J. Sansweet, who operates the nonprofit Rancho Obi-wan Star Wars museum near Petaluma, Calif., wrote in an email.

“We’re struggling (sometimes unsuccessfully) to cap the tours.”