"The Force Awakens" Shatters "Hunger Games" Record

In less than 24 hours, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already exploded the records for at least two major ticket sales sites.

According to a statement from Fandango, the seventh Star Wars movie has surpassed The Hunger Games' sales record. "We have already sold eight times as many tickets as we did on the first day of sales for the first day of sales for the previous record holder," said the company statement.

It is virtually impossible for The Force Awakens' ticket sales to maintain that order of magnitude en route to its opening day on Dec. 18. But as a point of reference, The Hunger Games brought in $67.3 million on its opening day (including Thursday night previews), en route to a $152.5 million debut weekend domestically. The record for the largest domestic opening weekend in the month of December, meanwhile, is held by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, with $84.6 million.

Fandango also reported that traffic for the site surged to seven times its "typical peak level" once tickets for the film went on sale in concert with the release of the film's latest trailer — which has already amassed nearly 13 million views on YouTube, and 8.5 million views on Facebook.

Although the traffic spike crashed Fandango's site, along with several ticket sales outlets, the technical issues clearly did not dampen sales. MovieTickets.com is also reporting that The Force Awakens scored the highest first-day sales of any film in the site's history, accounting for 95% of all tickets sold over the last 24 hours.