Star Wars: The Force Awakens Will Pass Avatar for Domestic Box Office Record Today

Star Wars: The Force Awakens had a significant day-to-day change at the domestic box office from Monday to Tuesday this week, its third in theaters and first that's not a holiday week: 0%. The movie held strong with another $8 million day, exactly matching Monday's haul in North American markets.

That put the total at $758.2 million domestic gross, just $2.3 million shy of Avatar's current record. The Force Awakens is now assured to pass the mark today, Wednesday, on just its 20th day in theaters, which took over 330 days for Avatar to hit.

In fact, Avatar didn't pass the $750 million mark in its initial run ($749 million and change) - only after a "Special Edition" return to theaters did it set the $760.5 million domestic lifetime gross record, so depending how you're looking at the record books, some may say The Force Awakens did the job on Monday.

The overseas markets continue to now outpace domestic, clocking in at a fresh total of $799.1 million overseas, and bringing the global total to 1.557 billion dollars. That's still about $112 million shy of Jurassic World's current third place cume of $1.669 globally, but there's no doubt Star Wars will pass that, at the latest by the end of this coming weekend. A January 9 launch in China will significantly boost Force, as well.

That leaves only Titanic at $2.187 billion and Avatar at $2.788 billion in global gross to beat. Both are still significant numbers, and pose a challenge, but China's opening weekend should provide a better look at the chances for the so-far unstoppable Star Wars: The Force Awakens.