Marvel’s ‘Endgame: Encore’ rerelease pushed the 2019 blockbuster back past James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ to become the highest-grossing movie of all time.
Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing movie of all time again. The second weekend of Disney‘s Avengers: Endgame Encore rerelease added $4.4 million domestically and $14.4 million overseas, lifting the 2019 Marvel Studios blockbuster to $2.9255 billion worldwide, according to studio figures. That is just enough to slip past James Cameron‘s Avatar and its $2.9237 billion, a margin of roughly $1.8 million.
It is the latest chapter in one of Hollywood’s longest-running heavyweight bouts. Avatar held the global record for a decade after its 2009 release from Twentieth Century Fox, until Endgame overtook it in July 2019. Avatar took the title back in March 2021, when a rerelease in China pushed it ahead again, and it had held the crown ever since. Now Disney, which owns both films after acquiring Fox, has flipped the order one more time.
The Encore run has been a genuine event. Its $86 million global opening last weekend made it the second-biggest worldwide rerelease ever, behind only the 2012 Titanic 3D rerelease, and its $26 million domestic debut topped a crowded box office that included Paramount’s Brad Pitt-led Heart of the Beast, A24‘s Robert Pattinson-starring Primetime and DreamWorks Animation‘s Forgotten Island.
Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, Endgame follows the surviving Avengers as they try to undo Thanos’s erasure of half the universe. The ensemble includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner, and the film’s emotional send-off for the original lineup is a big part of why audiences turned out again seven years later.
The timing is no accident. The rerelease is designed to build momentum for Avengers: Doomsday, which reunites the Russo brothers with Marvel and brings Downey back as Victor Von Doom. Doomsday opens Dec. 18, the same day as Warner Bros.‘ Dune: Part Three, setting up a head-to-head weekend that Kevin Feige has reportedly conceded was not the best idea.
For Disney, the record is both a marketing win and a reminder of how much appetite remains for the original Avengers era. Whether Avatar answers back, and whether Doomsday can come anywhere near these numbers, is the next chapter.
