Avengers: Endgame
crushed plenty of records at the box office, making well over $1 billion during the opening weekend alone, and reaching $2 billion in the weekend that followed. But Endgame is still trailing behind Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time at the box office. Marvel re-released the movie this past weekend, just a few days ahead of the Spider-Man: Far From Home premiere. But the extra content and special poster were not enough to topple Avatar’s box office tally — at least, not yet. Avengers 4 might need another re-release of some sort to become the world’s highest-grossing film.
At the time of this writing, Endgame had made $2.761 billion in theaters, which is just $26.6 million shy of Avatar’s record. That means the Endgame re-release made just $10 million at the box office over the weekend, of which $5.5 million came from US theaters. That’s nothing to scoff at for a movie that’s been out for more than two months. But even so, it wasn’t enough to beat James Cameron’s blockbuster. Some people noticed that Endgame already won if you don’t count re-releases, because Avatar had one as well. That can’t be good enough for Marvel, however.
According to Deadline, sources from the distribution circles are skeptical about Endgame chances of actually coming out on top. Some think Endgame might require a second re-release to pull it off, and even so it’ll be an uphill battle:
You’d think the re-release would be enough to get Endgame over the bump and past Avatar. Unfortunately, that’s not expected, and if it happens, it would shock many in distribution circles. Even if Endgame in the next week grosses $10M-$15M worldwide, many say that final $22M-$27M will be an uphill slog that might require an additional theatrical re-release should
Disney decide to go the distance and outstrip the record owned by the mega-franchise filmmaker they inherited from Fox. Some in distribution circles even think Endgame ultimately won’t out-peg Avatar.
Deadline
also identified the reason why Endgame hasn’t been able to surpass Avatar’s performance: Poor performance in lucrative markets outside of US and China.
One thing that might help Endgame is Far From Home, which hits theaters next week. The new Spider-Man film is expected to win the Independence Day weekend at the box office, with an estimated haul of between $125 million and $160 million. When Endgame launched, it sent many people to revisit Captain Marvel or watch it for the first time. Far From Home might do the same thing for Endgame, further boosting its box office total.
