Avengers: Endgame tops Avatar as the biggest movie of all time

Yes, Avengers: Endgame is now the biggest-grossing movie of all time in unadjusted grosses, but that’s not the only big superhero box office news this weekend. First, if you missed it, yes, Avengers: Endgame passed the $2.888 billion global gross of James Cameron’s Titanic. Thanks to some unreported overseas grosses (as is normal when the studio essentially audits a movie at the end of its theatrical release), a quasi-reissue and an obscene over-performance in China (where it earned 70% more than Infinity War), Avengers: Endgame is now the biggest-grossing movie of all time worldwide.

It’s still behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($937 million) in North America, Wolf Warrior 2 ($854 million) and The Wandering Earth ($699 million) in China and Avatar in overall overseas grosses ($2.03 billion), but, with a new worldwide cume of $2.89 billion, it has the big record on its trophy case. That reissue was technically intended to give a last-minute boost to Spider-Man: Far from Home by more directly positioning the Sony superhero flick as not just an MCU movie but a direct sequel to Endgame. It worked.

The “Infinity Saga” epilogue soared to a $97 million debut weekend in China and a $188 million Tues-Sun launch in North America. And as of today, the $160 million action comedy has earned $319 million in 20 days of domestic release, putting it within the sights of Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million in 2017) and Spider-Man 3 ($336 million in 2007 and sans 3-D). But it has already bested those two overseas. With an overseas cume of $651 million and a global cume of $970 million, the Tom Holland/Zendaya/Jake Gyllenhaal MCU flick has passed both the $880 million cume of Homecoming and the $890 million cume of Spider-Man 3.

That makes it, sans inflation or overseas expansion, the biggest Spider-Man movie ever. It is also Sony’s second-biggest global grosser, between Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ($962 million in 2017/2018) and Skyfall ($1.108 billion in 2012/2013 sans 3-D). So, yes, Far from Home is probably going to clear $1 billion and it may well pass the James Bond epic to become the biggest Sony movie ever. Again, some of this is due to essentially Chinese box office inflation, from a territory that usually only gives back 25% of the ticket price to the studios, but money is money.

In terms of domestic prospects, it’s not exactly legging out, having dropped 52% its first weekend (not bad, even with the notion that it opened on a Tuesday) and dropping 53% this weekend. Still, when you open that high, legs are more of a bonus. Presuming nothing changes over the next month, we can expect a final domestic cume of $360 million, or just below the $373 million gross (in 2004 and sans 3-D) of Spider-Man 2. Far from Home may be the biggest Spidey flick worldwide, but in North America it’s not even the biggest “Spider-Man part 2.”