Via Fortune.com:

The Star Wars franchise has already made over $7 billion collectively, but the latest episode could be its biggest hit yet.

There’s a reason why Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger calls the The Force Awakens, the long-awaited next episode of the Star Wars saga, one of his biggest priorities: Months before the movie’s December 18 launch, analysts are already projecting it will be one of the top-grossing box office hits of all time.

Morgan Stanley’s Benjamin Swinburne expects the upcoming flick to bring in $650 million in the U.S. alone, and a total of $2 billion globally. A recent report from RBC Capital Markets, meanwhile, gives similar projections and points to Disney’s “strong marketing and promotion across all of its divisions” as a harbinger of the movie’s impending success. “…There is no question on whether or not the film will be profitable, but rather how big it could end up being,” says the report. (Already, the six episodes in the Star Wars saga released so far have brought in $7.3 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.)

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