Brace yourselves and prepare to completely rewrite the record books. Avengers: Endgame has not only beaten The Force Awakens to the biggest first day and single day of all time – $158 million for Endgame compared to $119.1 for TFA – but it’s currently on track to bring in somewhere between $349-$356 million for the weekend.
To put that into some kind of context, this three plus hour long movie, which opened on 4662 screens, is looking likely to beast the previous record holder Avengers: Infinity War by almost $100 million dollars, and that’s in the States alone. As Deadline succinctly put it, ‘The entire industry is in a complete state of shock.’
Industry estimates as of last night for Friday stand at $158.3M (including $60M record previews), which is $39.2M more than Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ opening and single day record of $119.1M. And as for the weekend, this morning the range is between $349M-$356M off the widest theatrical release ever of 4,662. Saturday is expected to ease between -30% and -35% for a take between $102M-$110M.
Consider that amount of money for a minute – $349M-$355.8M. That’s a total that many studios hope their tentpoles generate in their domestic lifetime. It’s an amount of cash that’s close to $100m higher than the $257.6M record opening of Avengers: Infinity War! (on the high-end of that range Endgame is $98.2M higher). Also on the top end of the range, Endgame‘s start is $107.8 higher than Force Awakens’ $247.96M start.
The movie has also snatched two other records, fasted to $100 millon and fastest to $150 million. Expect many, if not all, of the remaining records to fall.
Now eyes turn to the worldwide box office, where Avengers: Infinity War last year posted a £640.5 million opening weekend. With the domestic weekend total of Endgame looking likely to near $400 million and Box Office Mojo already showing the international total at $487,000,000, a weekend global total north of $880 million looks increasingly likely.
Here are the current top four grossing films of all time, currently the only four films to gross over £2 billion worldwide.
Avatar: $2,788.0
Titanic: $2,187.5
The Force Awakens: $2,068.2
Avengers: Infinity War: $2,048.4
With a billion in the bank highly likely by the end of the weekend, Endgame joining the rarified air of the $2 billion club looks like a dead cert.
Looking ahead, can The Rise of Skywalker get anywhere near these numbers? It seems unlikely, given the far broader international popularity of Marvel compared to the limited appeal of the Star Wars series. Avengers: Endgame has taken $217.4 million in three days in China alone since it opened on Wednesday night. By way of comparison, here are the full and final box office takes of the previous four Disney era Star Wars films in China.
The Force Awakens: $124,159,138
Rogue One: $69,484,899
The Last Jedi: $42,577,974
Solo: $16,473,217
That final box office gross for the four films combined is $252,695,228, just $35,295,228 ahead of the $217.4 that Endgame has taken from Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th April.
That said, with the Skywalker saga coming to an end in December and anticipation at an all-time high, you never know. The Force Awakens grabbed $936,662,225 in North America with an additional $1,131,561,399 internationally. The Last Jedi fell way short of those figures, but perhaps the way to massive numbers is the fact that 2019 is littered with major franchises coming to a close. Game of Thrones, the 22 episode Infinity saga, even The Big Bang Theory. Perhaps the world will feel the inherent nostalgia built into this 42 year old saga, which started in 1977 with A New Hope. If so, maybe it will be Skywalker doing the snap to make Endgame disappear from the top of the record books.
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Doctor Strange (2016)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
