It's official: the new Star Wars is the highest grossing film of all time in North America, beating the record set by Avatar.
An additional $8 million gross on Tuesday brought The Force Awakens to a domestic total of $758.2 million. When factoring in today's numbers, it's set to pass the record of $760.5 million set by Avatar in 2010. Even more impressively, The Force Awakens was able to hit this milestone after only 20 days of release, whereas Avatar made that amount of money over the course of seven months.
The big question now is if Star Wars can beat Avatar in international gross and on that front the film has a long way to go. Avatar's record is $2.78 billion worldwide and The Force Awakens is currently at $1.53 billion. A big factor here is China, where the movie will finally open on January 9. Box office analysts predict a Chinese gross of between $200 and $300 million. For comparison, Avatar grossed $204 million in China.
However, some don't think The Force Awakens will ultimately be able to sink Avatar as the #1 movie of all time internationally, although it's expected to beat out Titanic for the #2 slot. Analysts are currently eying a final gross of between $2.2 and 2.4 billion, ahead of Titanic's $2.19 billion but still falling short of Avatar.