On the subject of the box office record, here are the top few films for both Worldwide box office and Domestic (i.e. USA) box office, with their total gross (in millions) as well as how they compare to Avatar's gross in that market (so Avatar's gross is 100%, a film that makes half as much is 50%, etc.):
Worldwide
1. Avatar - $2,788m (100%)
2. Titanic - $2,186.8m (78.4%)
3. Jurassic World - $1,665.8 (59.7%)
4. Marvel's The Avengers - $1,519.6 (54.5%)
5. Furious 7 - $1,514.8 (54.3%)
6. Avengers: Age Of Ultron - $1,402.8 (50.3%)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - $1,341.5 (48.1%)
Domestic
1. Avatar - $760.5m (100%)
2. Titanic - $658.7m (86.6%)
3. Jurassic World - $651.8m (85.7%)
4. Marvel's The Avengers - $623.4m (82.0%)
5. The Dark Knight - $524.9m (69.2%)
6. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - $474.5m (62.4%)
7. Star Wars (A New Hope) - $461.0m (60.1%)
The thing worth noting here imo is how much further ahead the James Cameron duo is in the worldwide box office compared to the USA. For example Jurassic World's domestic gross is over 85% of Avatar's domestic gross, and it almost overtook Titanic. Yet on the worldwide level, Jurassic World (which by no means did badly with global audiences) didn't even reach 60% of Avatar's total. So while other big films are regularly grossing quite close to Avatar in the USA, none are coming close worldwide.
Also worth mentioning that there are different films on those lists - a film being near the top of the overall chart in the USA doesn't necessarily mean it will make the same position worldwide. And notice a couple of films that appear on the US list but not worldwide? Star Wars. You have to go down to #20 on the overall worldwide box office chart to find Episode I, and the original Star Wars doesn't even crack the top 50, despite them being #6 and #7 on the domestic chart.
So seeing those numbers (Avatar not being quite as far ahead of the chasing pack in the domestic box office, and the Star Wars franchise historically doing much better in the US than globally), am I really the only person here that thinks Star Wars 7 might take #1 all time in the domestic box office but not make #1 all time worldwide? I mean, it could be that the market has changed enough and this is the Star Wars film the global box office is ready to really embrace making it #1 in both, or Star Wars could "fail" to pass Avatar's domestic haul and not be #1 in either, but to me it seems as though there is a pretty gaping space in the middle for Star Wars to become #1 domestic but #3 or #2 worldwide, and that might just be the sweet spot for it.
Just seeing this thread bumped again, pretty shameless gloating post from me here but how often do you get to look back and see your prediction played out quite so nicely?
I see another couple of people picked the same option in the poll since I made that post, but Star Wars overperforming in the USA relative to the rest of the world held true so #1 domestic #3 worldwide turned out to be right.
As for Endgame one, it's an interesting one as the opening weekend Box Office is just, so far ahead of anything else it's hard to even make the comparison (it was almost double Infinity War's worldwide opening weekend, and Infinity War was the previous record holder almost $100m ahead of the next one down). But for something so unprecedentedly huge, it's possible things could go pretty differently. I could see some of that opening weekend being more about people wanting to make sure to see this one even
earlier than usual rather than purely just more people wanting to see it. So we could see it drop a lot and play more like a "normal" huge movie by the second weekend rather than maintain this pace.
But, looking at it this way: Infinity War made $640m opening weekend, and ended with $2,048m at the box office, so it's total gross after the opening weekend was around $1,408m. Endgame made $1,223m (!!!) on it's opening weekend. Even if it were to add the same amount as Infinity War made after it's opening weekend, it would reach $2,631m - second behind Avatar at $2,788m. That's the stat that makes me think it has good chance.
But the main question is if, as I said above, it just will have roughly the same audience as Infinity War except they went to see it even earlier (in which case it will drop off steeply since there's not as many people left to go and see it), or if it will actually have a bigger audience than Infinity War (including repeat viewings). From what I read it held decently on Monday and added a fine amount on Tuesday - the second weekend will probably be the first indication of whether it has a much bigger drop than predicted.