‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Is Now The Highest-Grossing Film Of All Time In North America
It is now official — Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke a new record this week when it “forced” Avatar out of the reigning position of highest-grossing film in North America.
BREAKING: ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ set to become the top-grossing movie of all time today in U.S., Canada: Disney
— Reuters Showbiz (@ReutersShowbiz) January 6, 2016
Just a couple of days ago, the new Star Wars movie overtook Titanic as the second most successful film ever.
Avatar had a $760.5 million lifetime domestic haul in just 20 days. Since it had its debut December 18 in the U.S. and Canada, the Star Wars film has been blasting past records at full speed. It was the fastest film to reach $100 million, and it did so in 21 hours. The film also had the biggest opening week when it pulled in $391 million.
Can the seventh installment in the saga beat out Avatar for the highest-grossing film of all time? It currently sits at a $1.5 billion global haul; Avatar set a record at $2.8 billion.
‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ to become biggest film in US history today https://t.co/dpy0JR4LEn
— Tangeneka Curry (@MIZTLC) January 6, 2016
According to Time, the odds may certainly favor Star Wars, especially since the film is opening soon in China, which is the world’s second largest movie market.
CNBC recently shared a report that also said China could definitely be the key to propelling this movie into most successful film of all time.
According to BoxOffice Media’s managing editor, Daniel Loria, the overseas market can contribute up to two-thirds of a big studio film’s revenues.
“The international box office has grown so much over the last five years—and (as) it’s been 10 years since the last Star Wars film—Star Wars hasn’t had the chance to come out during the time of the overseas box office boom that we’re currently having,” Loria shared. “A big studio film can expect to have anywhere between two thirds to around 40 percent of its total global box office coming from the international market. China for example is a huge market, that was nowhere near the size it is today back when the last (Star Wars) film was released.”
Disney bought the Star Wars franchise — and Lucasfilm — for $4 billion in 2012, and the studio plans to release one movie a year for the next five years. Some people may be curious — what will be the storyline for these movies?
The films will allegedly be based on side stories and standalone angles for individual favorite characters. Although all the details are not set in stone as of yet, the upcoming Star Wars films that have been announced include the anthology film, Rogue One, to be released in 2016, and Episode VIII will also make its way to the big screen in 2017. There have also been some rumors of a Han Solo feature as well as features telling the backstories of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Looks like “The Force” will also be with Disney and J.J. Abrams for quite awhile yet.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has not been the only film pulling in revenue as of late. Other movies that didn’t do so shabbily for themselves in 2015 included Furious 7 and the Jurassic Park sequel, Jurassic World.
[Image via Lucasfilm/Disney]
