As the old saying goes, records are made to be broken, and one only needs to look at the box office for proof. Over the years, a wide assortment of records have fallen, ranging from individual franchise grosses to all-time marks and everything in between. It stands reason to believe that many of the films that stand at the top of certain charts will eventually be toppled, but there is one record that won’t be so easily broken. From the beginning, Star Wars has always been a box office juggernaut, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the clearest illustration of how dominant it can be. Released to much excitement over the 2015 holiday season, The Force Awakens put together an unprecedented theatrical run.
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On January 6, 2016, The Force Awakens reached one of its most notable milestones. That was the date when the legacy sequel surpassed Avatar to become the highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. In just 20 days, The Force Awakens earned a whopping $764.4 million, and it still had a long way to go. By the time The Force Awakens finally left theaters, it had accumulated $936.6 million in North America alone. To this day, it remains the only movie to reach $900 million domestically, and it’s hard to see how anything is ever going to come close.
The Force Awakens Was an Unprecedented Cinematic Event
It’s difficult to overstate just how excited people were for The Force Awakens. It was the textbook definition of an “event movie” that captured the entire pop culture zeitgeist by storm. Arguably the most popular film franchise in history was unexpectedly returning after a 10-year absence, finally giving fans the opportunity to see the post-Return of the Jedi galaxy they had long dreamed about. Prior to Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, there obviously had been a plethora of Star Wars media, ranging from novels to comics to video games, but nothing beats seeing the universe fully realized on the big screen. On top of that basic elevator pitch, The Force Awakens also benefited from a brilliant marketing campaign that appealed to both long-time viewers who grew up with the original films and the youngsters who saw themselves in Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron. The expertly crafted trailers leaned into nostalgia while also establishing The Force Awakens as an ideal entry point for franchise newcomers.
A perfect storm of cross-generational appeal wasn’t the only thing The Force Awakens had going for it. The film would have made money regardless of when it premiered, but debuting in December gave its box office prospects a considerable boost. Rather than being part of a long line of summer blockbusters that also included Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Inside Out, and more, The Force Awakens was able to dwarf over everything as the biggest attraction. It was the lone big-budget studio tentpole playing that holiday season, so it faced no competition. There was pent-up demand for a crowd-pleasing Hollywood blockbuster, and The Force Awakens checked off a lot of boxes for moviegoers young and old.
In terms of being a genuine cinematic event, the closest rival The Force Awakens had is Avengers: Endgame, which had the gargantuan task of concluding the Infinity Saga on a high note. Audiences were understandably excited to see how Marvel would land the plane after building out an unprecedented cinematic universe, as the film promised to wrap up a multitude of storylines and character arcs that had been developed over a decade. While Endgame outgrossed The Force Awakens globally, Marvel was no match for Star Wars in the United States. Endgame finished its run with $858.3 million domestically, a difference of roughly $78.3 million.
If Avengers: Endgame couldn’t topple The Force Awakens, it’s borderline impossible to find another movie that could realistically pull it off. Marvel has a couple of more Avengers movies on the way in Doomsday and Secret Wars, but while those should be hits, the unevenness of the Multiverse Saga means they’ll be hard-pressed to rival Endgame at the box office let alone The Force Awakens. Even Avengers: Infinity War couldn’t manage to hit $700 million. The odds of Avatar reclaiming its crown are also low; The Way of Water made $688.4 million domestically, and Avatar: Fire and Ash is lagging behind that pace. If James Cameron gets around to making the planned fourth and fifth installments, the franchise’s track record indicates it won’t have much of a chance of toppling The Force Awakens. Even Star Wars itself is a longshot to break the record. The franchise’s fandom is in a very different place than it was 10 years ago; The Mandalorian & Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter might be hits, but nowhere near the level of The Force Awakens.
Moviegoing Habits Have Changed Too Much
Even if there was an event film big enough to theoretically scale the $900 million mountaintop, moviegoing habits have changed far too much over the past decade. When The Force Awakens debuted, streaming existed, but it wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is today (for context, Stranger Things had yet to premiere on Netflix). We were also a little more than four years away from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a drastic impact on the Hollywood landscape, forever altering the length of theatrical windows. The pandemic coincided with the rise of the streaming wars, and all of a sudden, the manner in which the general public consumed movies changed.
People still go to the theater to see new releases, of course, but not nearly at the same rate as they did in 2015. The year The Force Awakens opened, the total gross at the domestic box office was $11.1 billion. In 2025, the total gross was $8.6 billion. That’s a difference of nearly $3 billion, which can partially be attributed to shortened theatrical windows. Even a well-received blockbuster like Superman doesn’t stay in theaters for as long as some would like. After debuting this past July, Superman was made available on PVOD in mid-August. These days, it’s easier for people to wait and catch new releases at home. There isn’t as much of an onus to see something in theaters as soon as possible, unless you’re a die-hard fan of a particular IP or just enjoy the cinematic experience.
To illustrate how much things have changed, The Force Awakens released on home media in early April 2016, roughly three and a half months after it hit theaters. So not only was waiting for digital untenable, fans were also in for a long wait for rewatches. The Force Awakens would not have grossed as much as it did if not for repeat viewings, and it’s very difficult to envision a scenario where a blockbuster benefits from repeat viewings to this extent. It’s true that this decade has produced the likes of Top Gun: Maverick ($718.7 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($814.8 million), which definitely got a boost from repeat viewings, but there’s still a sizable gap between these releases and The Force Awakens.
Nowadays, making a return trip to the theater is a tough sell for even die-hard fans. Carving time out of a busy schedule to pay for tickets and concessions again isn’t very appealing when the movie will be available at home in a month or so. It’s understandable why people would still be interested in seeing a movie once on the big screen on opening weekend — especially if it’s a big title that’s highly anticipated. Spoiler culture is still a thing, and the best way to get ahead of that is to see the movie when it first becomes available. But after that first theatrical viewing, there’s arguably little incentive to go back because you’ll be able to watch it in your living room in seemingly no time at all. There may still be outliers like No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick, but repeat viewings might become less prevalent as time goes on.
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