‘Star Wars’ passes ‘Avatar’ for N. America box office record

LOS ANGELES: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” soared past “Avatar” on Wednesday to become the top-grossing movie of all time in North America, riding on hype, nostalgia and an inventive script.

Disney said the seventh film in the “Star Wars” saga had grossed $758.2 million through on Tuesday, when it took in $8 million, and surpassed on Wednesday the $760.5 million earned by James Cameron’s Oscar-winning sci-fi epic “Avatar”.

“This afternoon, with early box office results in, ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ became the highest-grossing film of all time in the domestic market”, Disney said in a statement, without providing figures.

The “humbled and grateful” company thanked its fans for helping it reach the milestone, saying that without them “there is no Star Wars”. “There has indeed been an awakening — and it’s all thanks to you,” it said.

At $1.56 billion in global earnings, “The Force Awakens” still has some work ahead on that scale to overtake “Avatar” ($2.79 billion) or another Cameron blockbuster, “Titanic” ($2.19 billion). It is now fourth in all-time worldwide revenues, also trailing “Jurassic World” ($1.67 billion).

But many observers expect the film ultimately to challenge for the top spot.

“‘Star’ Wars has always been one of the most beloved franchises in all of filmdom... it was just a matter of finally having a deserving sequel to the original trilogy that tipped the scales and topped ‘Avatar,’” said Jeff Bock, of industry tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2016