Skip to main content

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now Disney’s most successful film of all time in the US

The records continue to fall for Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, which just became the highest-grossing film of all time in U.S. theaters for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

The Force Awakens has now earned more than $629 million domestically since its December 18 premiere, moving it past 2012’s superhero team-up blockbuster The Avengers to become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. The new ranking also makes it the most successful film of all time for Disney.

Recommended Videos

The meteoric rise of The Force Awakens is particularly notable, given that it took the film only 13 days to pass the total gross of The Avengers over its entire run in U.S. theaters. The Force Awakens finished the year as the second highest-grossing movie of 2015 domestically, ranking just behind the $652 million earned by Jurassic World — another total earned over the course of its entire run, far longer than the 13 days that Star Wars has been in theaters so far.

Internationally, The Force Awakens is currently the eighth highest-grossing film of all time with almost $1.3 billion in ticket sales so far. However, the film has yet to open in China, the second largest market in the world — meaning that it’s likely to get a big boost when it premieres in that country January 9. Currently, it ranks behind both The Avengers and its 2015 sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, in the all-time global box-office records. (A situation that will almost certainly change when it opens in China, if not before that point.)

In the race to become the highest-grossing movie of all time domestically and worldwide, The Force Awakens still has to beat the records set by James Cameron’s sci-fi adventure Avatar in both markets. The 2009 film holds both prestigious records with $760.5 million in U.S. theaters over the course of its 34-week run, and $2.78 billion worldwide. (Avatar and Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic are the only films to have ever crossed the $2 billion mark globally.)

Given that The Force Awakens is still going strong in theaters and has quite a bit of time left in what’s likely to be a long run, it will be interesting to see where the film ends up in 2016’s box-office rankings, and whether it will end up among the highest-grossing films for two consecutive years.

Rick Marshall
Former Contributing Editor, Entertainment
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Star Wars: Visions is getting a new spin-off series
Star Wars

Star Wars: Visions is back with a third season, and it's getting a new spin-off series inspired by its stories. If you aren't familiar, Visions is an animated anthology of different short stories, each told in a self-contained way. You don't need to know much about the overall lore to enjoy these one-off tales, and many notable studios — including the excellent Studio Trigger, known for the anime Delicious in Dungeon and Kill la Kill — have contributed to the series.

At Star Wars Celebration Japan, Lucasfilm's James Waugh announced another set of nine Visions episodes coming October 29, 2025. He also said the series would get a spin-off that would focus on fan-favorite characters Kara and Juro and invited The Ninth Jedi writer Kenji Kamiyama onto the stage to discuss the upcoming spinoff.

Read more
Darth Maul is getting his own Star Wars animated series
Darth Maul in Star Wars Rebels.

Over 25 years ago, Darth Maul was killed off in his first appearance in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. However, Maul's popularity eventually led to his return in the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Maul was killed off for a second time in Rebels season 3, but even that won't be the end of his story. During Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced Maul: Shadow Lord, a new animated series featuring Darth Maul in the leading role.

https://twitter.com/starwars/status/1913133212349726755

Read more
First look at The Mandalorian & Grogu screened at Star Wars Celebration
Din Djarin flying while holding onto Grogu.

Lucasfilm didn't skimp on the first day of Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Tokyo. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Star Wars: Starfighter is heading to theaters in 2027, Lucasfilm turned the spotlight to the next film in the Star Wars franchise: The Mandalorian & Grogu. This continuation of The Mandalorian is currently in post-production, but fans in Tokyo got the chance to see the first footage from the movie.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, the film's director and co-writer, Jon Favreau, appeared alongside the other co-writer, Dave Filoni. They were also joined by Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and even an animatronic Grogu that walked out on stage and waved to the audience.

Read more