Marvel can rest now.
Avengers: Endgame has officially passed Avatar at the worldwide box office and become the highest-grossing film in history, Disney has announced. The Marvel superhero event took in $2.790 billion by Sunday, Disney said, topping Avatar's previous record of $2.789 billion, The Hollywood Reporter says. This is the first time the highest-grossing film worldwide unadjusted for inflation has been a movie not directed by James Cameron since before 1998's Titanic.
The milestone for Endgame, the culmination of more than a decade of Marvel Studios' storytelling, comes nearly three months after it landed in theaters with a mind-blowing domestic opening weekend of $357 million and a global opening weekend of $1.2 billion. For some time after, box office prognosticators were skeptical that Endgame could leap past Avatar, but a re-release prior to Marvel's Spider-Man: Far From Home helped provide a boost, and Disney also "found additional money when reconciling the movie's final global earnings," the Reporter notes.
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The timing of this announcement couldn't have been better, either, as Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was able to inform fans about the studio's achievement at the start of its Saturday San Diego Comic-Con panel, during which Marvel went on to preview its next several years of post-Endgame movies and TV shows, announcing a fourth Thor film featuring Natalie Portman as a female Thor, a new Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali, and much more.
Given Endgame's unprecedented level of anticipation, it's difficult to imagine another film on the horizon that might outgross it, with one exception: Avatar itself. Several sequels are coming, and it's possible Disney will re-release the original Avatar prior to its follow-up, allowing Cameron to reign supreme once again. For now, though, the Avengers have won the box office fight of their lives.
