Lucasfilm’s esteemed Disney stablemates over at Marvel will be popping corks all weekend as Avengers: Endgame not only beat the previous worldwide opening weekend figure set this time last year by Avengers: Infinity War, it almost doubled it. Thanks to the extra firepower of a $329 million dollar opening weekend in China – which Infinity War didn’t have as the film opened there a number of weeks later – the 4th Avengers film brought in a n insane global total of $1.2 billion, making it the first film to open to over $1bn worldwide.
Just to put that 5 day global figure into some kind of perspective, that means that already, Endgame is the second highest grossing film in the United States this year behind Captain Marvel (Captain Marvel is currently #2 on this weeks chart with a 52 day total of $413,580,047 compared to Endgame‘s 3 day total of $350,000,000) and has already surpassed Captain Marvel‘s global total of $1,110,180,047 with $1,209,000,000 in just 5 days meaning only Iron Man 3, Black Panther, Age of Ultron, Avengers Assemble and Infinity War lie ahead of it. It’s almost certain that by next weekend only Infinity War will top its place in the Marvel box office hierarchy, and only then for a few more days.
On the all-time worldwide box office chart the figures seem even more insane. Again, after just 5 days the film currently sits in 18th position, just ahead of Minions on $1,159.4 and behind Iron Man 3 on $1,214.8, giving Marvel 8 of the top 25 highest grossing films of all time. With a production budget north of $300 million, the film is already comfortably in the black.
It’s $350m North American opening weekend beat it’s predecessor Infinity War (which took $257,698,183 last April) by almost $100m, opening on the most screens (4600) and becoming the first film to open to over $300m. It broke opening day and weekend records in nearly every market in the world, apart from Russia where it is yet to open. In the States it set the largest domestic opening day record and the largest ever Thursday, Friday and Saturday grosses, bringing in $108m on Saturday alone.
The question is, what legs will Endgame have? Worldwide, it seems inevitable that it will reel in Infinity War on $2,048.4, The Force Awakens on $2,068.2 and even the immovable iceberg of Titanic on $2,187.5 but can it reach far enough to catch Avatar – the film many believed would never be caught – way out in front on $2,788.0? It’s almost halfway there in just 5 days, so perhaps this weeks numbers will be telling in how close it can get.
In the States the all-time champ is The Force Awakens on $936.7, ahead of Avatar on $760.5, Black Panther on $700.1 and Infinity War on $678.8. Again, the coming days will give a strong indicator on whether the snap can bring about the end of the Force at the top of the charts.
Either way, amazing numbers are being posted, figures we will hopefully be seeing again in December when The Rise of Skywalker arrives, another film powered visually by ILM VFX and aurally by the wizards at Skywalker Sound.
