Avengers: Endgame's Box Office Opening Expected To Be The Biggest Ever

Avengers: Endgame is almost here. Its release this week comes amid massive anticipation, and as a result, the superhero blockbuster is expected to have a huge opening at the box office. Be sure to check out our Endgame review for impressions of the film.

We'd previously heard that Endgame's first week of pre-sales saw it almost double the combined pre-sales of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Avengers: Infinity War, Aquaman, and Captain Marvel. Clearly, the movie was primed for major success, but now there's further evidence to suggest this coming weekend could shatter records.

Deadline put some projections together, and Endgame is expected to have the biggest domestic opening in the history of movies. Sources told the site that pre-sale tickets alone in the United States have reached as high as $140 million, which is uncharted territory in film.

Avengers: Infinity War holds the record for biggest domestic box office debut, coming in at $257.6 million in 2018. Deadline reports that Endgame could reach $300 million in the US for its opening, to set a new record. Endgame is a very long movie, coming in at 3 hours and 1 minute; by comparison, Infinity War was 2 hours, 29 minutes and The Force Awakens was 2 hours, 16 minutes. Box office analysts told Deadline that if the 12,000 or so US theatres have four or five showtimes for Endgame per day day at each location, with each theatre at 70 percent capacity, then Endgame might have a chance of reaching $300 million for its opening weekend. We've already seen some theaters adding additional showtimes in order to meet demand.

Deadline acknowledges that tracking estimates are challenging for Endgame, considering the sample size of movies that have made more than even $200 million over their opening weekends is so small. "More realistic projections for Endgame have it beating Infinity War's all-time domestic opening record of $257.6M last year at this time, and coming in within a range of $260M-$270M," Deadline reported.

Also bear in mind that Deadline's report is only for the US. The movie of course is opening around the world, but box office projections for international markets weren't included in the report. Infinity War made $640.5 million for its opening weekend to hold the worldwide opening-weekend record.

As for Endgame's total box office haul, that will be interesting to watch. Infinity War made $2.048 billion globally, while Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie worldwide in history with $2.78 billion.

Endgame is expected to make so much money, but it's also been a very expensive film to produce and market. The film no doubt has a massive budget due in part to its cast of A-list talent and extensive VFX, among other things. In addition, Deadline reports that Marvel is spending an unprecedented $200 million to promote the film.

Endgame is coming on April 26, with some screenings scheduled for the evening of April 25. Spoilers have begun to leak on the Internet, making this a very perilous couple of days for fans who want to be surprised when they see the conclusion of this decade-long story. The film's directors have politely asked everyone not to spoil the fun for others, but we've also put together some practical advice on how to avoid being spoiled.

In other news, Fortnite has teased a new Avengers-themed crossover event. We've gotten two teasers for it so far, showing both Captain America's shield and Thor's Stormbreaker. Epic Games has not explained exactly what this event will consist of; last year, for Infinity War's release, it launched a special mode where you could equip the Infinity Gauntlet and become Thanos, so it's possible we'll get another limited-time mode this year along those lines. We'll know for sure on Thursday, April 25.