'Fifty Shades Darker' Beats 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' As Most-Viewed Trailer In First 24 Hours

Earlier this week, Universal released the trailer for Fifty Shades Darker, the second chapter in the Fifty Shades franchise. When the first film was released in 2015, it hit at the exact right time to capitalize on the success of the book series. I had always assumed that the excitement for the series would die down. I could never have anticipated that the sequel trailer would beat out Star Wars: the Force Awakens to become the most-viewed trailer in the first 24 hours of release. Find out how many more views Fifty Shades Darker beats Star Wars by, after the jump.

The trailer for Fifty Shades Darker has been viewed 114 million times across all platforms in the first 24 hours of release, according to Universal. Within the first hour of the trailer's debut, it received more than 2.5 million views on Fifty Shades domestic Facebook page alone.

The trailer was viewed 39.4 million times in North America, but interesting the majority of online views came from international markets. Those of you watching Silicon Valley might be suspect that those international view numbers might be inflated in some way, but they don't appear to be — Fifty Shades of Grey earned $571 million at the global box office, of which $166 million was earned domestically.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens holds the previous record for the most-watched movie trailer in the first 24 hours of release with 112 million views online. That record was set by beating the Force Awakens teaser trailer which amassed 88 million views in 24 hours in April 2015. The first film, Fifty Shades of Grey, took a week to break the 100 million view mark.

The fact that Fifty Shades Darker could top this seems ridiculous to me as Force Awakens earned over $2 billion worldwide at the box office and I don't expect Darker will come anywhere close to that kind of number. Of course, online trailer views are no indication of what a film could make at the box office (as evidenced as some of the figures I used to pick my top 10 for the Summer Movie Wager this year).

Fifty Shades Darker will open in theaters nationwide on February 10th 2016.