A film with blue aliens was once so far ahead of everyone else, it looked like it was made of Pandora’s highly prized (and stupidly named) ‘unobtainium.’ Avengers Endgame was widely expected to smash past its $2,789.7 billion box office haul after a staggering opening weekend banked over one billion dollars worldwide. But modern movies are built to burn fast and hard, rarely having the legs of releases in previous decades. It seemed Endgame might finish with an honourable silver medal until the canny plan to rerelease the epic with some bonus features after the end credits.
Some movie fanatics cried foul, but Avatar’s final total does include all eight months on release, while Endgame has only been in (and then back in) cinemas for three months so far. Avatar also had a limited rerelease.
It has been a long drawn out limping last gasp to the finish line, but Endgame has just squeaked past Avatar this weekend. it may, no doubt, have been helped by the enormous buzz surrounding all things Marvel this weekend at San Diego Comic Con, which has reverberated around the global fandom.
The current grand total for Avengers Endgame now sits at $2,790.2billion. That is a mere half-million more than Avatar.
The Russo brothers have been celebrating the news in triumphant style.
They reposted an article proclaiming: “Avengers: Endgame Finally Conquers King Of The World James Cameron’s Avatar To Become Highest-Grossing Film Of All Time.”
The Russo tagged a personal message on saying: “To the greatest fans in the universe, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you…”
Surprisingly, however, the top two comments currently on that thread are both dismissive of the victory and the divisive rerelease, while others remind everyone that with inflation factored in Endgame is still behind.
Of course, to be entirely fair, the adjustment for inflation would have to be applied across the entire box office table.
This would then push most modern champions far down the list as old classics like Gone With The Wind or The Sound of Music trample on the modern pretenders. But then you would have to argue that back then almost nobody had televisions and everyone went to the cinema as the main source of entertainment.
Or perhaps, everyone should just congratulate the Thanos-beaters for their historic victory and move on.