Endgame Passes Avatar by $1.76 Million After Encore

Avengers: Endgame has reclaimed the all-time box office record at $2,925,466,085, just $1.76 million ahead of Avatar. The 2019 Marvel crossover returned on September 25 as Avengers Endgame Encore, a global reissue sold as required viewing before Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

The new lead is smaller than a decent opening day in China. It is also enough, on an unadjusted chart, to put Earth’s Mightiest Heroes back above Pandora for the second time.

Endgame Takes the Crown Back by $1.76 Million

Encore added $126 million to a film that had been sitting at $2,799,439,100. Avatar, the 2009 20th Century title now housed at Disney, remains at $2,923,710,708 after five re-releases of its own. The gap between them is $1,755,377.

That is the whole fight. Two studio-owned blockbusters, both already past $2.9 billion, trading first place by a rounding error after another trip through the multiplex.

THE WORLDWIDE CHART AFTER THE ENCORE

Spider-Man: Brand New Day, a 2026 Sony release, already sits at $2,505,476,970 on a first run, which is the part of the chart that still looks like a movie business. The top two slots are a closed club. Endgame and Avatar have been passing a microphone back and forth since 2019, and nothing else is close enough to grab it without its own encore campaign.

Marvel Studios as a whole is now at $35.075 billion across 38 films, a figure Disney posted after Encore’s opening weekend. The all-time single-title crown is a thinner prize than that franchise total, and a much thinner one than the marketing department needs it to sound.

$126 Million From a Seven-Year-Old Film

Disney framed the reissue as proof that a seven-year-old title still living on Disney+ can fill seats. Andrew Cripps, the studio’s global distribution chief, said the opening “reiterates that there’s a massive fanbase for this franchise, and the fact that it’s a 7-year-old movie on Disney+, it’s an incredible opening.” The weekend also gave the company a second-highest global debut for a re-release, behind only the 2012 3D return of Titanic.

Joe and Anthony Russo, who directed Endgame and are back for Doomsday, used the booking as a delivery system. Encore carried a tweaked ending plus new mid-credit and post-credit scenes tied to the December film. Anthony Russo told Marvel.com the new scenes would not rewrite Endgame.

We weren’t going to mess with what that movie is.

Anthony Russo, co-director, to Marvel.com

The original cut stayed the original cut. The new footage was the reason to buy a ticket instead of hitting play at home. Imax still took an estimated $13.7 million of the first weekend, about 16 percent of the global open, and China led overseas with $13.5 million. The United Kingdom and Ireland, Mexico, and Italy followed.

WHAT THE ENCORE OPENING PUT ON THE BOARD

• Global open: Disney posted $86 million worldwide, $26 million domestic and $60 million overseas, across 53 territories.
• Audited domestic start: Box Office Mojo logged $26,106,643 from 3,060 theaters, then $36.2 million in 10 domestic days.
• Premium share: More than 1,300 of 3,000-plus locations were Infinity Vision houses, and Disney said they accounted for about 52 percent of the opening weekend.
• Audience scores: Verified moviegoers sat at 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and PostTrak came in at 5 out of 5 from general and family crowds.

Those Infinity Vision bookings were not a side bonus. They were a rehearsal. Disney built the Infinity Vision certification for premium screens after Warner Bros. locked US Imax for Dune: Part Three over the same December 18 date as Doomsday. Encore put the new label on 1,300-plus screens and asked Marvel crowds to learn the name before the film that actually needs it.

A re-release that prints $126 million would be a story on its own in most years. This one was also a trailer with a box office column, and the column was large enough to move a 17-year argument by $1.76 million.

Both Films Have Now Been No. 1 Twice

Avatar first took the unadjusted record on January 25, 2010, 41 days after it opened, and sat there for a decade. Endgame, which had opened to $1.2 billion worldwide in April 2019, the first MPA film to clear $1 billion on an opening weekend, passed it on July 22, 2019, after 89 days, at about $2.79 billion. James Cameron posted the Na’vi greeting and a graphic of Iron Man in a cloud of woodsprites.

“I see you, Marvel,” he wrote. “Congratulations to Avengers: Endgame on becoming the new box-office king.” The Russo brothers wrote back that he was “a monumental reason why we fell in love with film in the first place.” Kevin Feige, speaking at Comic-Con that same weekend, said Endgame would probably lose the title to Cameron’s next film.

Feige was right, just not in the way the sequel slate implied. Avatar took the crown back in March 2021 with a China re-release, then added more on later return engagements, five in all, until the lifetime line reached $2,923,710,708. Endgame did not pass it again on a first run. It passed it on a second one.

HOW THE ALL-TIME CROWN HAS CHANGED HANDS

1. January 25, 2010: Avatar becomes the highest-grossing film after 41 days, overtaking Titanic.
2. July 22, 2019: Endgame passes Avatar at about $2.79 billion, 89 days after release.
3. March 2021: Avatar reclaims the top spot on a China re-release ahead of The Way of Water.
4. September 25, 2026: Endgame Encore opens worldwide with new Doomsday footage.
5. October 4, 2026: Endgame moves to $2,925,466,085 and takes the unadjusted record a second time.

The complaint that a re-release should not count is the same complaint Avatar already survived. Endgame needed two theatrical lives to get back above a total that already includes five of Cameron’s. Anyone keeping a clean first-run list is watching a different sport. On the list Hollywood actually prints, the crown is now a booking decision.

Why a 1939 Film Still Outranks Both

Unadjusted dollars favor whoever sells the newest tickets at the newest prices. That is why a 2019 superhero film and a 2009 3D epic can trade a title that neither would hold if the chart used constant ticket values. Guinness still lists Gone With the Wind as the highest-grossing film after inflation, at $3.44 billion on the 2014 method of multiplying estimated tickets by then-current average prices.

Box Office Mojo’s domestic ticket counts make the same point without a formula fight. Gone With the Wind is at 202 million tickets. Avatar is at 97.3 million. Endgame is at 95.3 million. Cameron’s film still sold more North American admissions than the Russo film, even after Encore, because a large share of Avatar’s money came from 3D and Imax surcharges rather than from a larger crowd.

None of that lands in a weekend recap. Studios do not take out ads for inflation-adjusted rankings, and exhibitors do not reset the marquee for 1939. The number that moves on October 4 is the nominal one, and the nominal one is now a $1.76 million Marvel lead.

It will not stay still if either film goes back out. Ticket prices in 2026 are not ticket prices in 2009, which is the quiet reason a re-release can manufacture a “record” that a first run in the same year might not.

Fire and Ash Already Answered the Sequel Question

The sequel that was supposed to keep Avatar’s side of this fight in the present tense already had its run. Avatar: Fire and Ash opened in the United States on December 19, 2025, and finished at $1.49 billion worldwide, the lowest total of the three Pandora films. The Way of Water is at $2,334,484,620. The original, with those five reissues baked in, is at $2,923,710,708.

A $1.49 billion movie is a hit in any ordinary accounting. It is not a film that threatens $2.9 billion. Cameron has already said the next two chapters may need to be made cheaper and faster if they happen at all, with Avatar 4 dated December 21, 2029, and Avatar 5 dated December 19, 2031. Michelle Yeoh is “definitely going to be in 4, if we make 4,” he said.

So the path back to No. 1 for Avatar is not Fire and Ash, and it is not a guarantee on Avatar 4. It is another engagement of the 2009 original, the same lever Marvel just pulled. A 20th-anniversary run in 2029 would land in the same calendar year as Avatar 4. Disney can book that if it wants the headline more than it wants a clean sequel launch.

The encore war is the only version of this race the sequels still know how to run.

One Parent Company Owns the Whole Podium

Fox released Avatar in 2009. Disney closed the Fox deal in 2019, the same year Endgame first passed it. Both titles now sit in the same earnings stack. When Endgame is No. 1, Marvel’s column looks taller. When Avatar is No. 1, 20th Century’s catalog looks taller. The parent company cashes the same check.

That is why the public congratulations stay friendly. Cameron did not have to salute Marvel in 2019, and he did it anyway. The Russos did not have to fanboy back, and they did. There is no rival studio to needle. There is a shared slate, a shared Disney+ library, and a shared interest in reminding people that a trip to a large screen still prints money a streaming menu does not.

The people with actual skin in a $126 million encore are exhibitors who just spent two years on refits, and a Doomsday campaign that lost US Imax. Cinema United has put theater renovation spending at $2.7 billion over two years. Endgame Encore gave those rooms a known title, new footage, and a premium-format label Disney needed audiences to start asking for by name.

A two-million-dollar “win” over a sister film is a press release. Filling 3,060 theaters on a September weekend with a 2019 movie is the part that pays the light bill.

Doomsday Arrives on December 18 Without IMAX

Avengers: Doomsday is dated December 18, 2026, with Anthony and Joe Russo directing and Robert Downey Jr. returning as Victor von Doom, not Tony Stark. Warner Bros. already holds US Imax for Dune: Part Three for the first three weeks of that date. Disney’s answer is Infinity Vision, a certification for large screens, laser projection, and premium sound, not a new projector.

Encore was the soft launch of that answer. Fifty-two percent of an $86 million re-release weekend is a useful proof of concept if you are about to ask families to skip Imax on purpose. It is a weaker proof if Dune: Part Three turns the first three weeks of December into a split vote. The $1.76 million Endgame lead does not change that math. It just puts a record on the poster while the studio argues about screens.

Avatar can take the unadjusted title back the same way it lost it, with another booking of a film that has already been No. 1 twice. Endgame can add a few more million while Encore is still on the schedule. Neither move requires a new masterpiece. Both require a date, a few extra minutes of footage, and a parent company willing to let two of its own titles wrestle in public.

For now the chart says Endgame, by $1.76 million, with Doomsday 74 days away and no US Imax on opening weekend. The crown fits. It also comes off as easily as it went on.