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Weekend box office: Avengers: Endgame’s opening weekend breaks all the records

Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame - Official Trailer

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame was expected to break a lot of box-office records, but just how many records the film has already broken after one weekend in theaters is still a shock.

The sequel to Avengers: Infinity War, which brings Marvel’s 11-year “Infinity Saga” to an end and marks a major turning point in the studio’s interconnected superhero universe, made a massive $350 million in U.S. theaters over the course of its opening weekend. It performed just as well internationally, raking in a grand total of $1.2 billion worldwide.

Ticket sales of this magnitude are far beyond anything Hollywood has seen in recent years from any films — and that includes Infinity War, which set quite a few records of its own.

# Title  Weekend    U.S. Total 
1. Avengers: Endgame $350M $350M
2. Captain Marvel $8M $413.5M
3. The Curse of La Llorona  $7.5M $41.2M
4. Breakthrough $6.3M $26.1M
5. Shazam!  $5.5M $131.1M
6. Little $3.4M $35.8M
7. Dumbo $3.2M $107M
8. Pet Sematary $1.2M $52.6M
9. Us $1.1M $172.8M
10. Penguins $1M $5.7M

Among the records broken by Avengers: Endgame already, the film now has the biggest opening weekend for any film ever made, both domestically and worldwide. In both cases, Infinity War was the previous record-holder, and Endgame beat that film’s domestic premiere by nearly $100 million in U.S. theaters and almost doubled its worldwide debut.

Avengers: Endgame also set a new record for crossing the $1 billion mark worldwide, having reached that point in just five days — an achievement that took  Infinity War a then-record 11 days.

The opening weekend for Endgame also set new records for IMAX and 3D screenings, beating record-holders Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Infinity War, respectively, for the best debut in each format. It also contributed to the biggest weekend of all time for U.S. theaters, giving the industry its first $400 million weekend domestically. (The weekend in which Infinity War premiered was the previous record-holder with $314 million in ticket sales.)

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Outside the U.S., Endgame had the biggest international opening weekend of all time, crushing the $443 million that Fate of the Furious made outside the US with more than $859 million in ticket sales. Contributing to that particular record was the $330.5 million it made in China, the second largest movie market in the world, where it now has the biggest opening weekend of all time.

Ticket sales are one thing, but Avengers: Endgame matched those gaudy numbers with equally impressive reviews.

The film currently has 96% positive reviews from professional critics, second only to Black Panther among the best-reviewed films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also received a rare “A+” grade from ticket-buying audiences, suggesting that there haven’t been too many people (if any) leaving the theater disappointed with Marvel’s latest blockbuster.

With Endgame doing this kind of business in theaters, it’s certain to be the top movie in theaters for weeks to come — but that doesn’t mean competing studios are avoiding new releases altogether.

Arriving in theaters this upcoming weekend is the Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron comedy Long Shot, as well as the animated feature Uglydolls, based on the toy line of the same name. Vigilante thriller El Chicano also debuts in select theaters.

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Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
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