The Force Awakens only needs a little over $200 million to pass up Avatar in the US and Canada.
Today in how many box office records can Star Wars: The Force Awakens break, Disney reports that the new film will end 2015 with a domestic total of $652 million after only 13 days in theaters. That makes The Force Awakens the second-biggest domestic movie of 2015 and the fourth-biggest of all time.
The Force Awakens been smashing records left and right — including ones you haven’t even heard about, like “most money made on a Monday” (a record it set on December 21). But here are the numbers to look out for as it continues its assault on American movie theaters. (All box office data is, as always, from the irreplaceable Box Office Mojo.)
According to Walt Disney Studios, The Force Awakens will pass Titanic ($658.7 million) Friday to become the second highest-grossing film of all time domestically. It also will pass Jurassic World ($652.3 million) to become the No. 1 film in 2015 domestically.
Avatar‘s ultimate domestic total is $760.5 million – a number The Force Awakens will likely surpass. At present, The Force Awakens sits at just over $540 million, the fifth biggest movie of all time in the US and Canada. At the rate it’s been raking in money, an additional $220 million doesn’t seem that tough, but The Force Awakens is racing the calendar to some degree. Once Monday, January 4, rolls around and many people go back to work and kids go back to school, it will lose those hugely profitable weekdays. Plus, its staying power, while impressive, has so far lagged a bit behind Avatar‘s.
While The Force Awakens should be past Titanic — the second biggest film of all time domestically — by that January 4 cutoff, catching Avatar will take some doing. Still, the safe money is on it doing so somewhere in the month of January.
Meanwhile, Avatar‘s worldwide total of $2.788 billion seems safer as a record, until you consider that The Force Awakens has yet to open in China, one of the world’s biggest moviegoing markets. If The Force Awakens is a hit there, even Avatar‘s worldwide record might not be safe.
Only two movies have ever crossed this mark at the worldwide box office, and they were both directed by James Cameron — Titanic and Avatar. Heck, those two are in such rarified air that only an additional three films — Jurassic World, The Avengers, and Furious 7 — have crossed the $1.5 billion mark.
As the fastest film in history to hit $1 billion at the worldwide box office (just 12 days!), The Force Awakens should have no trouble becoming the sixth film in the $1.5 billion club. But it also seems likely to have the stamina to make it into the $2 billion club, especially with its China opening still ahead.