On Sunday, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame crossed $2.7902bn at the box office, pushing it over the $2.7897bn earned by James Cameron’s sci-fi epic, Avatar, the BBC reports.
Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, announced the big news during San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, confirming Endgame would close a then $500,000 gap by Sunday.
“Thanks to you, Avengers: Endgame is the biggest film of all-time,” he says during the Marvel Hall H panel.
Endgame is the 22nd offering in the Marvel Studios superhero franchise and the fourth in the blockbuster Avengers series.
Ahead of Avengers’ official climb to the No 1 spot, James Cameron had already seen the future apparently and had taken to Twitter to congratulate the Marvel team for Endgame’s early success.
But it took Avengers: EndGame two trips to the cinemas to achieve the feat.
The film was first released in April 2019 and it broke a number of notable records, including the fastest film to hit $100 million at the box office, the highest-grossing opening day in history, and the first film to earn $1 billion in an opening weekend. But there was one major title the studios were set on taking: The biggest movie of all time.
So, the task was set to achieve that feat too. And the only way to do that was to re-release the film in the cinemas.
So, at the end of June 2019, Avengers: Endgame was re-released with added footage and the recent release of Spider-Man: Far from Home, helped give the film a box-office boost. It finally surpassed the $2.9bn mark on Sunday.
Mission accomplished!
However, box-office figures are not adjusted for inflation and Avatar would still be ahead if they were, according to the BBC. Also per the BBC report, when inflation is taken into account, the 1939 Gone With the Wind film would be a top contender for the title since according to the Guinness Book of Records, its inflation-adjusted box office takings would be $3.44 billion.
The BBC report also has this very interesting chart that shows the top 10 highest-grossing film s of all times (not adjusted for inflation). With the exception of Titanic, also directed by James Cameron (No 3) and James Wan’s Furious 7 (No 8), all the other films on the list are fantasy films set in alternate universes.
All four Avenger’s films are on the list as is Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens (No 4). Universal’s Pictures’ Jurassic World is at No 6 while another Marvel’s fantasy film Black Panther completes the list at No 10.
Yes, Marvel rules the box-office.
Check out the chart below:
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