In 1996, Titanic took over the Box Office world and became the highest grossing movie of all time, amassing 659 million dollars. That record stood for 14 years until Avatar finally overtook it when it made 760 million, and finally Stars Wars: The Force Awakens overtook Avatar in 2015 with a stunning 936 million. So what chance does Endgame have of getting to 937 million and overtaking Force Awakens for the throne?
To the untrained eye it may seem like Endgame should have no problem doing it? After all, after three days Force Awakens had 247 million and after three days Endgame has 357 so its already pacing 110 million ahead. But unfortunately its going to end up being a lot closer than it seems at first.
For starters Marvel movies are notoriously "frontloaded" meaning they make a higher percentage of their overall money in opening weekend compared to the average movie. The Force Awakens made just 27% of its money opening weekend while the average Marvel movie makes about 35% in its opening weekend. Infinity War made 38% if its overall gross opening weekend, and Endgame will probably do about the same. If Endgame does exactly the same as Infinity War it would finish at 942 million, just eking past Force Awakens. Judging off of that alone, its going to be an incredibly close call. Remember, Infinity War also made more opening weekend than The Force Awakens did, but ended up finishing at $670 million, almost $270 million behind Force Awakens. Here's a look at the most frontloaded and most backloaded Marvel movies
Frontloaded
Captain America Civil War- Opening Weekend: 179 Million Final: 408 Million Total Percentage Made Opening Weekend: 44% If Endgame makes 44% opening weekend it will finish with: 810 Million
Backloaded: Guardians of the Galaxy-Opening Weekend: 94 Million Final: 333 Million Total Percentage Made Opening Weekend: 28% If Endgame makes 28% of its money opening weekend it will finish with: 1.1 Billion
These are extreme examples. There is no way Endgame will be as frontloaded as Civil War. Civil War had an unsatisfying ending and the hero vs hero concept did not attract many people who were not hardcore Marvel fans, causing it to be very frontloaded. nor is their any chance it will be as backloaded as Guardians of the Galaxy. Guardians of the Galaxy was a surprise hit with very little pre-release hype, a big factor in a movie being backloaded that obviously doesn't apply to Endgame. Almost always a movie with big pre-release hype is going to be frontloaded.
So how did the Force Awakens manage to be so backloaded even though it had a ton of pre-release hype? Its release date. The Force Awakens came out in Mid December, meaning it had two full weeks of Christmas Break season to wrack up insane amounts of money, whereas Endgame will need to make most of its money on weekends with school still in session. Any movie that gets released in December or June/July generally tends to be backloaded because school breaks gives people more time to see movies. We see Force Awakens predictably making up ground right off the bat on the first Monday. Yesterday Endgame made 36 million while Force Awakens made 40 million on its first Monday. On the first weekday Endgame lost 4 million off its pace from Force Awakens and has gone from being 110 million ahead of pace to 106. That pace is going to continue to shrink the next two weeks as Endgame will inevitably have smaller weekdays than The Force Awakens did during the Christmas Break season. At the end of the day its going to be a very fun race to follow as it really is going to be very close, and right now its honestly a 50/50 call. Passing Avatar and becoming the 2nd highest of all time is a lock, and even if it doesnt beat out Force Awakens, number two is pretty awesome as well.
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