Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes highest grossing film of all-time at domestic box office

Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens has set a new box office record, becoming the highest-grossing film ever in North America.

With $758.2 million (as of yesterday) at the domestic box office, The Force Awakens has overtaken the previous-record holder, James Cameron's Avatar, which topped out at $750 million after a seven-month run which began back in December 2009; although a re-release of Avatar in theaters eventually brought its North American total to $760.5 million. Even then, The Force Awakens has blown past Avatar's domestic box office record at hyper speed, achieving the milestone in just 20 days after release.

While The Force Awakens has been on a tear domestically, it still has a ways to go before catching Avatar's global box office record. As of Tuesday, The Force Awakens sits at $1.56 billion (still yet to open in China), while Avatar made a whopping $2.78 billion. Even with the release in China, box office analysts (via The Hollywood Reporter) expect The Force Awakens to max out at around $2.2-$2.4 billion globally. That would still put it ahead of Cameron's Titanic ($2.19 billion), but second all-time behind Avatar.

Of course, these numbers are not adjusted for inflation. If that were the case, The Force Awakens still has plenty of catching up to do to not just Avatar, but a number of other movies, including the would-be leader Gone with the Wind. Comparitively, Avatar, when adjusted for inflation, would have a domestic box offic total of $837.3 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Regardless of how you look at it, there's no denying The Force Awakens has been a great first step for the iconic franchise now in Disney's hands. And there's only one reason I can think of for that: female protagonist.