X-Men: Days of Future Past Surpasses X2: X-Men United To Become Second-Highest Domestic Grosser in Franchise

X-Men: Days of Future Past, which bucked a steep downward trend last month to become a huge success for 20th Century Fox and director Bryan Singer, surpassed X2: X-Men United at the domestic box office this week with a lifetime gross of $216 million, making it the second-biggest U.S. box office haul in the franchise.

The top U.S. earner remains X-Men: The Last Stand, which generated $234 here in the States -- although Days of Future Past has already surpassed that film worldwide.

Since The Last Stand, each X-film had done worse than the one before it domestically, with the low water mark being last year's The Wolverine, which took in just over $130 million in the U.S. Of course, even that movie made enough worldwide -- $414 million and change -- to justify a sequel, which is expected shortly after X-Men: Apocalypse.

The odds are good that Days of Future Past will stick around in theaters long enough to eclipse that $234 million, although the increasingly-significant global market for U.S. blockbusters means that the movie's international success is much more meaningful than it would have been considered in the past.