Well, it’s finally happened after months of trying, and a cheeky re-release, Avengers: Endgame has officially become the highest-grossing movie ever.
The news is sure to delight Marvel-heads around the world who have been desperate for Endgame to unseat Avatar from the top of the box office ever since it was released earlier this year.
Of course, it’s worth noting that as Disney bought Fox they now own the Avatar properties as well, so they’re technically in competition with themselves…
But while the studio wins either way, so too do the Avengers have final victory over those blue, jungle-dwelling creatures.
Disney and Marvel recently revealed the new global intake for Avengers: Endgame was $2.7892 billion in raw grosses, which is $500,000 more than the James Cameron’s Avatar, which was released in 2009.
Disney added they expect an additional half a million dollars for Avengers to roll in by tomorrow, July 22, too.
It’s an impressive feat for Endgame to unseat Avatar, which has been sitting pretty at the top of the box office for the past 10 years. However, thanks to a slight re-release around the July 4 weekend (which put the film back in 2,000 theatres), the totting up of overseas grosses, a huge over-performance in China, and 10 years of hard work by Marvel, Endgame finally did it.
Marvel and Disney announced the inevitable news at, you guessed it, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, as Forbes reports.
It was a safe bet Endgame would take the title – the film had a $1.223 billion opening weekend, and sailed past Titanic (yup) in less than two weeks.
Endgame earned around $629 million in China alone, a whopping 75 per cent jump up from its predecessor Infinity War. Had the Marvel movie only taken the ‘average’ 29 per cent of its grosses from China, it probably wouldn’t have surpassed Cameron’s epic.
And while, if you take domestic inflation into account, Avatar sold more tickets in North America than Endgame, it seems the box office figures speak for themselves. Cameron certainly has his work cut out for Avatar 2.
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More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.