The Force is clearly strong with the newest "Star Wars" movie, as proven by the film's $1.7 billion worldwide box office total to date. Unfortunately, it may not be strong enough to break "Avatar's" worldwide record of $2.78 billion.
Though "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" became the quickest film to reach $1 billion worldwide and the highest-grossing film in U.S. history, it doesn't appear as if it will catch James Cameron's summer blockbuster from 2008. According to The Hollywood Reporter, industry insiders are projecting "The Force Awakens" to stall out as only the second-highest grossing film of all-time, between Cameron's "Titanic" and "Avatar." As things stand now, "Episode VII" is expected to finish its global run with roughly $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion (with an outside shot of reaching $2.4 billion). Either way, "The Force Awakens" will go down as one of the biggest hits of all-time. It's just not quite the biggest hit.
Analysts point to "Star Wars'" relatively disappointing performance in parts of Asia and Latin America for its eventual stall. Opening in China on Jan. 9, "The Force Awakens" brought in $52.3 million, the 20th highest-grossing opening weekend in the country behind the likes of fellow 2015 blockbusters "Furious 7" ($182.4 million), "Avengers: Age of Ultron" ($155.7 million) and "Jurassic World" ($99.1 million). To be fair, "Star Wars" has never been as popular a property internationally as it is within the United States.
Still, Disney is going to recoup more than half of their $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm with just a single film and "The Force Awakens" will become just the third $2 billion movie in history. Both are amazing standalone achievements. What's even more important, however, is how well "The Force Awakens" has set up Disney over the next five years. With two more saga films set to come out and a handful of spinoff anthologies, Disney can expect the box office money to keep rolling in for the foreseeable future.
The first anthology movie, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" will arrive on Dec. 16, 2016. "Star Wars: Episode VIII" will hit theaters on May 26, 2017.
