Marvel’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron was on course to reach the milestone on Friday, its 24th day of release.

The film will become Marvel Studios’ third release to cross $1bn worldwide alongside The Avengers and Iron Man 3.

It will also become the eighth Disney release to do so.

As of Friday morning the film stood at $990m overall and had grossed $76m in South Korea and $69m in China after two days.