Avengers: Endgame shattered box office records by earning $1.2 billion worldwide during its opening weekend. Over the last handful of years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the premier movie franchise of this generation, turning just about anything they produce into gold. Prior to Endgame’s release, the previous 21 installments had collectively grossed over $18 billion and there were no signs of things slowing down anytime soon. Captain Marvel, which came out in March, exceeded expectations and made $1 billion globally.

Given how popular the MCU is today (the Avengers movies in particular), it was always anticipated Endgame was going to have one of the biggest debuts of all-time. The only real drama was how high it would go. Selling advanced tickets at an unprecedented rate, Endgame was poised to rewrite the domestic and worldwide history books with the most incomprehensible opening. After a record-breaking opening day, the numbers are in and they’re truly staggering.

Today, Disney announced Endgame earned $350 million domestically during its opening weekend and $1.2 billion worldwide. Obviously, both are new all-time records. Endgame also became the fastest movie to hit $1 billion, accomplishing the feat in just five days. It’s the 38th film overall to gross $1 billion and the 8th from the MCU.

It goes without saying that this is uncharted box office territory and wasn’t considered a realistic possibility by even the rosiest of Marvel fans. Already, Endgame is the highest-grossing film of 2019 worldwide and is currently second on the domestic charts (trailing only Captain Marvel’s $408 million). There’s still a long way to go, but this is the most serious challenger for Avatar’s $2.7 billion global crown since 2015’s The Force Awakens - and Avengers may have a better shot. Star Wars, by virtue of being a product of the 1970s, doesn’t have nearly as much pull internationally as Marvel movies do (particularly in China). Endgame will need to have very strong legs moving forward against increasingly tougher summer competition, but nothing about this movie’s performance is normal. It’s difficult to view it through the prism of the long-established rules because it posted figures that seemed so far out of reach. Infinity War stayed on top of the charts for three weekends, and Endgame could match or surpass that. Anything’s possible.

What makes this development all the more incredible is that Endgame is a 3-hour movie, which typically limits the number of daily screenings theaters can show. But Endgame, of course, is not a typical movie release, and some theaters made the decision to stay open round-the-clock in order to keep up with the fervent demand. Clearly, there was tremendous interest in Endgame, and it’ll be interesting to see how far up it climbs up the charts from here. Regardless, this is an unbelievable achievement that will likely never be topped.

More: Avengers: Endgame Creates Marvel’s Biggest Timeline Challenge Yet (Seriously)

Source: Disney

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