After the world-conquering box office success of last year’s Avengers: Infinity War, it doesn’t take a Doctor Strange to predict that the upcoming Avengers: Endgame is going to make a lot of money itself. Sure enough, it’s the latest projection from Researcher Exhibitor Relations that the Russo Brothers’ next film is headed for a record-breaking domestic opening weekend haul of $282 million.
The recent forecast, reported by Bloomberg, suggests that Endgame could take the title for biggest North American opening of all time, surpassing even Infinity War, which grossed $257,698,183 domestically in its first three days. Senior analyst Jeff Bock attributed his optimistic prediction in part to the cliffhanger ending of Infinity War, which adds to the must-see factor of Endgame. The only slight cause for concern from Bock is that the film may end up being as long as three hours, which is all well and good for your average MCU obsessive, but would limit the number of showtimes for the movie.
In any case, though a lot could happen in the next two months, Endgame‘s status as the highest-grossing pic of 2019 is looking pretty safe right now. In the meantime, the MCU is still to bring us Captain Marvel, and while no one’s expecting Carol Danvers’ solo debut to be Endgame levels of big, the opening weekend projections are impressive nonetheless, ranging from Researcher Exhibitor Relations’ forecast of $118 million, to Box Office Pro’s prediction of $160 million.
We’ll see if Captain Marvel can perform as expected when it arrives in theaters on March 8th. After that Marvel Studios still has a few more weeks to build the hype for Avengers: Endgame before its release on April 26th.