There was no stopping ‘Avengers’
Its $350 million vaporizes box-office records.
NEW YORK – The universe belongs to Marvel.
“Avengers: Endgame” shattered the record for biggest opening weekend with an estimated $350 million in ticket sales domestically and $1.2 billion globally, reaching a new pinnacle in the blockbuster era that the comic-book studio has come to dominate.
The “Avengers” finale far exceeded even its own gargantuan expectations, according to studio estimates Sunday. It had been forecast to open with $260 million to $300 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, but moviegoers turned out in such droves that “Endgame” blew past the record $257.7 million set last year by “Avengers: Infinity War” when it narrowly surpassed “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($248 million).
“Endgame” was just as enormous overseas. Worldwide, it obliterated the record $640.5 million also set by “Infinity War.” (“Infinity War” didn’t open in China, the world’s second-largest movie market, until two weeks after its debut.)
In one fell swoop, “Endgame” has already made more than such movies as “Skyfall,” ”Aquaman” and “The Dark Knight Rises” grossed in their entire runs, not accounting for inflation.
To accommodate demand, Disney released “Endgame” in more theaters (4,662 in the U.S. and Canada) than any opening before. Advance ticketing services set records. Early ticket buyers crashed AMC’s website. And starting Thursday, some theaters even stayed open 72 hours straight.
“We’ve got some really tired staff,” says John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners.
Not working in the film’s favor was its three-hour running time. But theaters added thousands of showings for “Endgame” to get it on more screens than any movie before to satiate the frenzy.
For an industry dogged by uncertainty over the growing role of streaming, the weekend was a mammoth display of the movie theater’s lucrative potency.
“We’re looking at more than 30 million American and more than 100 million global guests that experienced ‘Endgame’ on the big screen in one weekend,” Fithian says. “The numbers are just staggering.”
Single-handedly, “Endgame” led the overall weekend at the domestic box office to a record $400 million in ticket sales, according to Comscore. “Endgame” accounted for a staggering 88% of those tickets.
The company’s Disney’s “Captain Marvel” – positioned as a kind of Marvel lead-in to “Endgame” – rose to No. 2 in its eighth weekend in theaters.
No other new wide release dared to open against “Endgame.” “The Curse of La Llorona,” last week’s top movie, slid to third with $7.5 million.
Rounding out the rest of the top five: Faith-based film “Breakthrough” finished fourth with $6.3 million, and DC Comics’ “Shazam!” fell to fifth with $5.5 million in its fourth week. Final numbers are expected Monday.