‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Crosses $1 Billion At Box Office, Becomes Fastest Film To Do So

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the fastest film to ever pass $1 billion at the box office, doing so just 9 days after it premiered at the U.S. box office.

Over the course of its second weekend at the box office, Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed the massive amount of $153.5 million at the U.S. box office, a total that every other blockbuster would crave for in its opening weekend. This was just a 38 percent drop from its $247.97 million opening weekend gross.

As of December 27, 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken in a total of $1.091 billion at the box office since it was released on December 18 in the U.S., and a day earlier in the likes of France and the United Kingdom. $544.6 million of this total was amassed in North America, while $546 million has been grossed in the variety of other worldwide territories.

What makes Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ impressive box office haul even more impressive is the films that it had to go up against during its second weekend. The seventh installment to the Star Wars franchise had to go up against Quentin Tarantino’s new film The Hateful Eight, as well as the Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg-led comedy, Daddy’s Home, the Leonardo DiCaprio-starring The Revenant, Will Smith’s NFL drama Concussion, and the remake of Point Break.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens blew each of these out of the water though, and it only needed ten days to reach its $1.090 billion total. The previous record for reaching $1 billion belonged to Jurassic World, which only needed thirteen days to gross this amount.

Despite only being in cinemas for 10 days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already broken several records in this period. In fact, its $544.6 million domestic haul means that it is already ahead of The Dark Knight’s $534 million. It’s also been predicted that by next weekend, it will have taken in $700 million domestically, which means that it would be on the cusp of passing Avatar’s total, too.

The only films that are currently in front of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ domestic total are The Avengers ($623.3 million), Jurassic World ($652.2 million), Titanic ($658.6 million), and Avatar ($760.5 million). Some box office experts have even predicted that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will ultimately gross over $1 billion at the U.S. box office alone.

But it doesn’t stop there though, because it is already 15th in the all-time worldwide grossing list. It’s been predicted by some that, by the end of its run at the box office, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be at the top of this list.

While it’s safe to assume that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will have no problem passing the $1.669 billion that Jurassic World grossed overall, it remains to be seen if it can get past the $2.78 and $2.18 that the James Cameron directed Avatar and Titanic amassed. A key component in Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ attempt to beat these totals will be its performance in China.

It also helps Star Wars: The Force Awakens that it really doesn’t have too much competition coming up from new films in the next few weeks. In fact, the only new films that have a genuine chance of eclipsing Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be Michael Bay’s new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi and the Kevin Hart and Ice Cube comedy, Ride Along 2, both of which are only going to be released on January 15.

[Image via Lucasfilm]