When Star Wars: The Force Awakens shattered Jurassic World’s opening weekend box office record with $247 million, many industry observers correctly predicted that the film could also surpass Avatar’s all-time domestic box office record. But no one thought that milestone would arrive in just under three weeks!
After only 20 days in release, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken the Pandora-set epic’s previously untouchable record of $760,507,625. If director James Cameron and 20th Century Fox follow Hollywood tradition, they may be releasing a congratulations poster of the Na’vi handing over their crown to the Star Wars characters later this week.
At this point, The Force Awakens‘ gross is in uncharted territory, and there’s no way to properly predict how high it will go. Some box office watchers have even suggested that The Force Awakens could become the first movie to pull in $1 billion domestically. January is traditionally a weak month for movies, which means that The Force Awakens won’t have many challengers that could unseat its grip on moviegoers for the next few weeks.
Avatar remains the all-time worldwide box office champion with approximately $2.7 billion. To date, The Force Awakens has made about $800 million overseas, and thus would have to make another $1.2 billion worldwide to match Avatar’s record. That’s not impossible, but it is unlikely unless The Force Awakens wildly surpasses all expectations in China, where it opens later this week.
Even if Avatar keeps its worldwide record, The Force Awakens will still have numerous records of its own. The subsequent Star Wars sequels will probably not be able to match this level of success simply because this was truly unique set of circumstances. After 10 years. there was a lot of pent up anticipation for a new live-action Star Wars movie. But since Disney plans to release a new Star Wars movie every year, that level of anticipation can only go down.
Are you glad to see The Force Awakens reclaim the domestic record for the Star Wars franchise? Share your thoughts below!
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Image Credit:Â Lucasfilm
