'The Force Awakens' Could Dethrone 'Avatar'

The latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens figures are practically out of this world. After a few weeks of breaking every record imaginable, the new movie grossed $88.3 million in North America over New Year's weekend (the third-largest in history). And now, The Force Awakens is on track to dethrone Avatar for the title of the highest-grossing North American film of all time. The film's revenues have been so substantial, in fact, that it buoyed North America's 2015 box-office take up to an incredible $11 billion in the eleventh hour, and closed out the winter holidays at $38 billion internationally, which is the highest global end-of-year close in history. Got all that? Wow.

The J.J. Abrams-directed film has been out for not even three weeks, and yet it has already grossed an astounding $1.51 billion, placing it amongst the top 10 highest-earning films of all time. A week ago, the film became the fastest movie in history to cross the $1 billion mark, a feat it beat out Jurassic World to get. Just three days ago, it surpassed both Frozen and Iron Man 3 to become the eighth highest-grossing movie of all time. And it hasn't slowed down yet, surpassing Avengers: Age of Ultron and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the sixth spot.

"The Force Awakens is picking off records one at a time as it explodes up the box-office chart,"media analytics tool Rentrak noted, according to USA Today. "It just barely missed setting the North American record this weekend by catching Avatar. It could do that tomorrow. The speed with which it has set all these records is unprecedented."

Given the speed of its climb, it's more than likely that the film will surpass Avatar's $2.8 billion gross in just a matter of weeks, going on to become the biggest movie ever. But what's left after it (almost certainly) takes the crown away from Avatar? Intergalactic domination? An eighth installment that manages to top the seventh in 2017? If The Force Awakens' weeks at the box office have managed to placed it amongst the highest-grossing films of all time, it isn't as much a question of whether it'll be able to top Avatar, which secured its #1 spot after 34 weeks time, but whether the other two films in the franchise's sequel trilogy will be able to measure up to The Force Awakens' lightening-fast success.

Images: Walt Disney; Giphy