Avatar once again resumed its crown as the most profitable film of all time, with James Cameron’s 2009 film reaching a new box office record to surpass 2019 Avengers: Endgame, which reached the first place with its fundraising of US $ 2.7902 billion that year.
But, thanks to a relaunch of Avatar in China, Deadline reports that Avatar it has raised enough to push its box office total to $ 2.798 billion, which surpasses the Most Powerful Heroes on Earth once again to the world’s largest total.
The increase in Avatar ticket sales are taking place at a time when cinemas in China are reopening in the wake of the pandemic COVID-19, which has seen a wave of spectators eager to return to theaters. And since most major Western film studios have yet to release new titles (given that most of the world still has very limited theatrical capacity), this leaves plenty of room to relaunch popular titles like Avatar about that.
With the rest of the weekend box office still ahead, it’s almost guaranteed that Avatar will continue to increase its leadership in Endgame in the next days. It is the latest development in the ongoing (and somewhat petty) struggle for the all-time box office record. Back when Avengers: Endgame was in theaters, Disney worked overtime to ensure it would take first place, re-launching the film several weeks after its initial screening, with promises of an additional excluded scene to increase the numbers.
It is also possible that Endgame you can retake your crown: Disney is known for putting its Marvel movies back in theaters as part of marathons or fan events before new films are released. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Endgame could return to theaters to make a run for the new Avatar record in the future – especially if U.S. theaters adopt a similar strategy of relaunching past big hits to help drive post-COVID return to theaters in the coming months.
Of course, the real winner here is, as usual, the Walt Disney Company. With Disney buying 20th Century Fox (and with it, the Avatar films) in 2019, the company will occupy first place at the box office, be it Avengers or Avatar ends up at the top.