‘Star Wars’ replaces ‘Avatar’ as No. 1 film in North America

With £100.1 million in the United Kingdom alone, The Force Awakens is now the second highest grossing film in the United Kingdom and is just behind Spectre’s haul of £102.9 million – another record that it is sure to take.

The J.J. Abrams-directed sci-fi-fantasy blockbuster achieved this historic movie milestone in a mere 20 days.

Currently, Star Wars: The Force Awakens stands with a global cume of $1.56 billion, which is still short of Avatar’s even bigger number of a $2.79 billion worldwide total. In less than 2 weeks the comedy starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg has earned over $90 million at the domestic box-office.

The worldwide record still belongs to Avatar though, and analysts suggest that may continue.

Star Wars set a record for a Christmas Day across the US and Canadian cinemas with sales of over $49.3 million. It also became the UK’s highest-grossing film this week, taking £94.7m in 17 days of release: a daily average of £5.7m. But when you adjust for movie ticket inflation, the records look a little different.

“The Force Awakens”, the seventh movie in the 40-year-old franchise, opened at theaters in much of the world on December 16 after a mammoth marketing campaign and glowing reviews.

There is still a big question: Can Star Wars: The Force Awakens be the first film in North America to reach $1 billion? Add one more jewel to the crown, as today it becomes the highest grossing film in North American history (not adjusted to inflation), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Internationally, “The Force Awakens” dropped just 10 percent from Monday to bring its cumulative total to $799.1 million.