In the words of Thanos: “the end is near.” Despite all of the noise from the nonbelievers, Avengers: Endgame is now only $5 million away from surpassing Avatar as the unadjusted highest-grossing film in history. Barring an unexpected collapse, the movie is expected to topple the record in a few weeks.
The flick is in its fourth weekend of a re-release, which included a touching memorial to the iconic Stan Lee as well as a deleted scene featuring Professor Hulk. The updated flick has garnered over $11 million in the month it’s been out so far and that doesn’t include this weekend’s box office numbers, which are bound to push the film even closer to dethroning Avatar. At its current rate of trajectory, it seems inevitable that the magnum opus of the MCU will soon hold the most coveted spot atop the cinematic record books.
In fact, the record will likely be broken while directors Anthony and Joe Russo are on their nationwide We Love You 3000 tour. Hopefully the brothers have something special planned for the momentous occasion that involves the whole cast.
While some analysts claimed that Avengers: Endgame would never be able to beat the James Cameron blockbuster, fans never lost hope. Even Robert Downey Jr. continued to campaign for the movie in hopes that it would break the record, though he admittedly had some financial incentive to do so as well.
Cameron will definitely be gracious in the defeat of his movie, but is also already planning several counterattacks to the MCU in the form of many Avatar sequels. It’s unknown if any of them will knock Avengers: Endgame off its perch, but we imagine they’ll at least come close.
In any case, the real winner in all of this is Disney, who owns both properties as well as Pixar and Star Wars. They probably don’t care who holds the record when all is said and done, as long as it’s one of their movies.
Avengers: Endgame is currently still playing in theaters for those who somehow still haven’t seen it or want to watch it once more. After all, the next ticket someone buys on a whim could end up being the very one that puts the superhero movie over the edge.