Star Wars Shatters Avatar’s Record
For the last six years, James Cameron’s Avatar has reigned atop the box office heap. However, that all changed with the release of the new Star Wars sequel, The Force Awakens. Avatar’s domestic box office record of $760.5 million has finally been broken by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, making it the highest grossing domestic film in history. The film has shattered Avatar’s domestic record in only 20 days of release.
On top of the film’s box office accolades, it also also crossed the $800 million mark overseas, to bring the film’s global total to $1,557,300 since its global debut on December 16. Of course, there are a couple caveats. First, Star Wars’ new domestic record is without taking inflation into account. Second, Avatar remains the top dog in global box office receipts. Avatar’s worldwide take is $2.87 billion, thanks to an overseas gross of over $2 billion. With that in mind, Avatar’s worldwide take is something Star Wars: The Force Awakens might not actually be able to beat. While it continues to climb at the domestic box office, the film’s overseas gross is still well below $1 billion. So the number one all-time highest grossing film at the worldwide box office is a title that will likely remain with Avatar for now.
Still, it’s likely the domestic dollars will continue to roll in. It’s all but a certainty that the film will now gross over $800 million domestic. Even in 2016, that’s a mind-boggling figure for any theatrical film to reach. It could possibly even reach as high as $900 million domestic or more.Considering that Avatar raged atop the spot for years and was only able to beat the previous record set by James Cameron’s Titanic, it is a figure that will not likely be broken for many years. Here are some of here other box office records broken by Star Wars (Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios):
- Fastest film to reach $100M (21 hours), $200M (3 days), $300M (5 days), $400M (8 days), $500M (10 days), $600M (12 days), and $700M (16 days)
- Biggest all-time debut and biggest December debut ($247.966M), propelling the industry to the biggest overall moviegoing weekend of all time ($313.3M for all films, Dec. 18-20)
- Biggest second weekend of all time ($149.2M), propelling the industry to the biggest overall Christmas weekend of all time ($296.4M for all films, Dec. 25-27)
- Biggest third weekend of all time ($90.2M)
- Biggest Thursday preview gross ($57M)
- Biggest Friday, opening, and single day ($119.1M)
- Biggest Sunday ($60.55M), Monday ($40.1M), and Tuesday ($37.3M)
- Biggest Christmas Day ($49.3M) and New Year’s Day ($34.39M)
- Highest per-theater average for a wide debut ($59,982)
- Biggest opening week ($390.85M)
- Biggest IMAX debut ($30.1M)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is set to open in China on January 9.