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The Force Awakens operated as a box office freight train from that point forward. Only a few months prior, Jurassic World had narrowly claimed one of the most important box office records, the opening weekend total. Despite having December box office deflation working against it, the new Star Wars movie absolutely shattered that $208.8 million record by accruing $248 million. And it was even more popular internationally. The Force Awakens grabbed another $281 million overseas, giving it another record-setting total of $529 million as its opening weekend global take.

I could go on for several paragraphs about all the records The Force Awakens has broken. It’s easier simply to link you to Wikipedia to see a running tally. The important numbers are the obvious ones. In addition to breaking the opening weekend, it rode the momentum of the holiday box office season to gross $650 million in its first two weeks in theaters. To put that in comparison, earlier this year, Jurassic World became the third biggest movie ever. Its grand total was $652.2 million. Star Wars 7 surpassed that total on day 15.

The Force Awakens eventually did the seemingly impossible by upending Avatar to become the number one domestic film of all time. That’s a record that James Cameron had held since the winter of 1998. JJ Abrams’ movie unseated Avatar’s once untouchable total of $760.5 million in only 20 days. Yes, by the time Star Wars 7 started its fourth week in theaters, it was already the holder of two of the three most important records in the box office realm. While Avatar’s global take of $2.78 billion seems out of reach, The Force Awakens should become the second biggest movie ever in terms of global revenue.

The amazing part of the entire situation is that the box office side of the equation isn’t the important part for Disney. The merchandising side is. They invented a brilliant news marketing event they named Force Friday, and its immediate popularity led to almost a billion in revenue. In totality, experts projected Disney’s Star Wars merchandise sales to approach $5 billion. As a reminder, they purchased the franchise from George Lucas for $4 billion. Stating the obvious, it’s one of the best buys in the history of Hollywood. The box office and ancillary revenue of the latest Star Wars sage lead to this unmistakable conclusion. With regards to selecting the most important Film Industry Story of 2015, this one’s an easy call. It’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens by a wide margin.

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