well you cant be too surprised by that. this was not going to be Gigli or Mars Needs Moms. Lucas has a sycophantic fan base - and now they have kids. So thats one percentage of the audience that is absolute automatic.

just based on comments of posters from this forum and elsewhere, there are people who dislike this film but will still see it anyway - maybe thats another 5%. combine that with the fact that this is almost strictly 3d, with $12-15.00 a ticket. and it appears Fox and LFL's own internal models were forecasting $20 million minimum.

if its any consolation, nobody is gonna mistake this re-release with 1997 (even then, ROTJ made just a quarter of SW, but is funny that this week had all 3 of the OT in the top ten - how cool is that)

come to think of it - looks like several movies had a good opening haul. kinda unusual for mid-february.