Avengers: Endgame is a big, big film.
It’s a three-hour juggernaut that still manages to fly by like a lean, carefully edited blockbuster. A lot of the reason for that is thanks to the script penned by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, whose MCU writing credits span Infinity War to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Of course, we also need to give credit to the Russo Brothers, who were able to close the book on this 22-film saga in the most satisfying way imaginable. Because when Endgame delivers – and boy, does it deliver – you’ll be left rooted to the edge of your seat, filled with nostalgia, joy, exhilaration and definitely a hint of sadness.
In other words, it’s a damn good movie, and unsurprisingly, it completely obliterated the box office this weekend. Analysts had been predicting an unprecedented opening for a while now, but with a total worldwide haul of $1.20 billion, it’s fair to say that no one could’ve imagined it doing this well.
Broken down, that’s $350 million from home turf showings and $859 million coming in from overseas. Clearly, this already makes Avengers: Endgame one of the biggest films of all-time and it’s only just hit theaters. Not to mention that it’s managed to beat pretty much every box office record imaginable. Including crushing Infinity War‘s opening, which was $257 million, itself an incredible figure.
“Avengers: Endgame is dusting every record in the books as it proves itself to be a cultural event on a global scale,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst for BoxOffice, told ComicBook.com. “Marvel has delivered on their promise of an epic conclusion to unprecedented storytelling that prioritized creative vision and fan enthusiasm for the last eleven years. This is the payoff to that goodwill. No film in history has been this widely anticipated, released, and embraced in the same moment.”
Where things will go from here, we can’t say for sure, but it certainly looks as if Avengers: Endgame stands a good chance of knocking Avatar from its perch as the highest grossing film of all-time (James Cameron’s pic stands at $2.78 billion), especially since it currently boasts an A+ CinemaScore and has fans running back to the theater for repeat viewings.
Even if it doesn’t, though, this is clearly still one of the most successful and impactful movies of our generation and everyone at Marvel Studios deserves a big round of applause for what a stunning achievement it is.