While the weekend box office headlines were dominated by the stunning box office failure of the Tom Cruise-led Digger, another big story broke today. Avengers: Endgame, thanks to its Encore Edition re-release, has now overtaken James Cameron’s Avatar as the highest-grossing movie of all time.
This weekend’s box office take pushed its lifetime global total to $2.925 billion, which puts it ahead of Avatar’s total. Now, before anyone cries foul about how it’s not really fair because Endgame got a major re-release, Avatar’s multiple re-releases also factor into its global total.
Domestically, Endgame still trails Spider-Man: Brand New Day (and also The Force Awakens), with its $894 million domestic total well behind Spidey’s $954 million.
What happens when you adjust for inflation?
What gets more interesting, though, is when you factor in inflation. Gone with the Wind is still apparently the all-time champ, with its re-releases, adjusted for inflation, bringing it to an incredible $4.56 billion. Avatar is actually in second place, as its grosses would put it in the $4.16 billion range.
That said, it gets complicated because Endgame came out in 2019, and its own adjusted grosses would put it well above $3.5 billion. Titanic and Star Wars, with their various re-releases, are probably just ahead of it with $3.86 billion and $3.74 billion apiece.
Box office records aren’t what they used to be
It’s always interesting to look at these lists and compare them to older lists, as even if, say, Brand New Day is the highest-grossing movie of all time domestically, it doesn’t feel like it’s had anywhere near the effect on pop culture that something like Star Wars did, when it played in wide release for years.
That’s no shade on Brand New Day either, but the business has really changed. Even Avatar, which is comfortably ahead of Star Wars in the inflation-adjusted rankings, hasn’t had the same kind of cultural imprint that movie did. Movies make more money faster than they ever did back in the day.
What do you think of Endgame overtaking Avatar? Let us know in the comments.
