Star Wars: The Force Awakens Likely One Day from Avatar's All-Time Domestic Box Office Record

The countdown is on for a new champion in the all-time domestic box office record category. Star [...]

By ComicBook.com Staff

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The countdown is on for a new champion in the all-time domestic box office record category. Star Wars: The Force Awakens should take the record from Avatar on Tuesday this week, after just 19 days in North American theaters. Avatar hit its 6-year-old record of $760.5 million after 48 weeks (including a re-release) or a total of 336 days.

This level of success, then, is truly unprecedented in modern film. The movie, with a $90.2 million third weekend, set another record with that number. The speed at which its hit every major milestone, the most recent being $700 million (a current domestic total of $742.2 million), has set record after record.

At a worldwide total after the third weekend of 1.51 billion (international is at $770 million) and China yet to open later this week, The question is no longer if The Force Awakens will pass the $2 billion mark, but when. It will pass Furious 7 and Avengers on the all-time worldwide box office list today, on Monday, and should pass Jurassic World either Monday or Tuesday, as well. That will put it at third all-time, behind Titanic at $2.187 billion and Avatar at $2.788 billion.

These numbers, as previously noted on this site, do not include inflation - however, looking strictly at inflation also doesn't tell the entire story. Other entertainment and economic factors would have to be compared to get an accurate idea of how films today compare with films from the 30s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, which make up the bulk of the All-time Adjusted list. Things like home entertainment, including TV, streaming services, blu-rays, and video games, all compete as modern entertainment for the same dollars being spent on movies today. Those things didn't exist (or existed in much smaller capacities) in those other decades.

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