Fifty Shades Darker, the second installment in the Fifty Shades movie series, doesn’t open in theaters until February but is already breaking records. The official trailer for the sultry Dakota Johnson–Jamie Dornan romance premiered online two days ago and easily eclipsed Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the most viewed trailer on a single day. Fifty Shades Darker snagged 114 million views across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and other digital platforms. The previous title holder was The Force Awakens, which snatched 112 million views in its first 24 hours.
Distributor Universal Pictures surely must be pleased with that number, particularly coming off the blockbuster success of the franchise’s first chapter Fifty Shades of Grey. That film, which introduced E.L. James’s iconic characters Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey to the silver screen opened to $85 million over Valentine’s Day in 2015; the movie went on earn $571 million worldwide. The second chapter follows Christian’s attempts to woo back Anastasia as his past comes to the surface, threatening their romance. Hugh Dancy, Eric Johnson, Jennifer Ehle, Luke Grimes, Rita Ora, Victor Rasuk, Eloise Mumford, Max Martini, Bella Heathcote, Kim Basinger, and Marcia Gay Harden round out the ensemble cast.
The trailer, utilizing similar marketing as the first film, dreamily pitted our would-be-lovers in an evocative montage of eroticism with the soundscape of a Beyoncé cover. The trailers first day analytics showed 39.4 million views in North America as well as specifically cut trailers in the United Kingdom (netting 18.9 million views), Brazil (12.4 million views) and France (9.8 million views). Reportedly, 2.5 million views came from the North American Facebook page for Fifty Shades occurred in the first hour of the trailer’s posting.
Excited? Fifty Shades Darker opens in theaters on February 10, 2017.
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