The end of an era for the Avengers has kicked off a new one for box office successes. Avengers: Endgame, which marks the end of Marvel’s 11-year narrative known as the Infinity Saga, grossed $1.2 billion worldwide in its opening weekend, including $350 million domestically, breaking all kinds of records in the process.
Avengers: Endgame’s $1.2 billion opening weekend is the biggest in movie history
Marvel’s follow-up to Infinity War has already broken several records, mere days after its debut.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
To put that astronomical figure in perspective, Endgame had the biggest worldwide opening in history. (Avengers: Infinity War held the record previously, having opened to $640 million worldwide in 2018.) It also had the biggest domestic opening in history (Infinity War also held that record previously, at $250 million). And Variety points out that Endgame also reached the $1 billion mark faster than any other film in history, doing it in only five days (it’s a pattern, but Infinity War held that record previously as well, reaching $1 billion in 11 days). With just one weekend on the books so far, Endgame already has the 18th-largest box office gross of all time.
It is now the sixth biggest Marvel movie of all time — behind The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Black Panther (2018), and Iron Man 3 (2013), though it will surely move up that list before long. So far, it has the ninth-biggest domestic gross out of Marvel’s 22 films.
Endgame’s massive box office haul was more than a decade in the making. Beginning with Iron Man in 2008, Marvel Studios deployed a strategy of connecting its solo superhero films together to tell a bigger story. Those films resulted in team-up films like Endgame’s predecessors — The Avengers, Age of Ultron, and Infinity War — which all brought in big box office tallies. Consequently, expectations are especially high for Endgame, considering that it’s the final chapter in the Avengers’ fight against the biggest villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date.
The next question will be whether Endgame can crack the $2 billion club. Only four films have ever made $2 billion worldwide: 2009’s Avatar holds the top spot with $2.7 billion, followed by Titanic (1997), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Infinity War. But the movie has earned high praise from critics and audiences alike, and it’s broken box office records after just one weekend in theaters. Plus, it has a high likelihood of making more money than Infinity War simply due to the nature of its story, and there’s a very strong chance that Marvel’s biggest fans will see the film multiple times. Knowing all that, there’s plenty of reason to believe it’s not a matter of if Endgame will make $2 billion, but when.
By Alex Abad-Santos, Alissa Wilkinson and 2 more
