Avengers: Endgame primed itself for success by dangling the mystery of who would survive Thanos’ snap, but when tickets went on sale in early April, the movie exceeded expectations. Very quickly, advance ticket sales sold fivefold over those of Infinity War and crashed websites including Fandango and AMC. Many multiplexes pushed their Thursday screenings ahead to 6:00pm, and theaters sold out to such a degree that the film set a preview night record.
In doing so, the assembling of superheroes (even silly old Ant-Man showed up!) not only passed the $39 million that Infinity War earned in last year’s previews, but it also broke the overall preview night record held by 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Via Box Office Mojo:
Marvel Studios’s Avengers: Endgame posted a record-breaking $60 million from Thursday evening previews, the highest preview gross ever ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, delivered $57 million back in December 2015.
The film has also broken first-day records in China (with $169 million) and in Brazil (with $7 million) and has scooped up a total of $305 million so far internationally. Analysts project that the movie should easily reach $300 million in its first U.S. weekend — it’s playing in over 4,500 U.S. locations, which is a good way to counter that pesky three-hour runtime — while landing anywhere between $800 million and close to $1 billion globally, all in less than a week. There’s little question that the film will nab the largest opening weekend in U.S. history, but how high can it climb?
We should know more by Sunday morning, and we’ll post a box-office report accordingly. Until then, enjoy the show!
(Via Deadline & Box Office Mojo)