Avengers: Endgame returned to theaters this weekend as Avengers Endgame: Encore, and it's proven a rousing success for Marvel Studios. With $26 million in North America—the movie played on 1,3000 "Infinity Vision" screens, accounting for 52% of ticket sales—it easily beat Resident Evil's $23.3 million second weekend.
Now, we have international numbers, and Avengers Endgame: Encore made $60 million overseas for a total of $86 million worldwide. That places it roughly $44.2 million behind Avatar, meaning it will need to gross that during the rest of this run to once again become the highest-grossing movie of all time.
Marvel Studios would be wise to find some new scenes to put in the credits in the coming weeks, as that will be the best possible way to boost ticket sales among MCU fans and return to the top spot. That's not necessarily the point of this re-release, of course, as the idea is to increase excitement for December's Avengers: Doomsday.
Avengers Endgame: Encore was the #1 movie worldwide this weekend and scored the second-highest global debut for a re-release behind Titanic 3D. The movie has grossed over $2 billion internationally, becoming only the second American film to reach that mark.
The MCU has now grossed over $35 billion since 2008, making it the most successful franchise ever by some margin. Avengers: Doomsday will only add more billions to that figure.
David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe, told Variety, "Re-releases rarely earn more than $10 million. As a marketing exercise, [this] is an effective way to build early word-of-mouth."
The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios’ grand conclusion to twenty-two films, Avengers: Endgame.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the movie features an epic ensemble which includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Josh Brolin.
"Avengers: Endgame is a masterpiece which not only delivers on every expectation you had but exceeds ones you didn't even think about," we wrote in our review of the re-release. "This isn't just a movie; it's an experience and one that only gets better for its Encore."
Avengers Endgame: Encore is now playing in theaters.