• Avengers: Endgame becomes highest grossing film
  • Endgame tops Avatar with $2.79bn take
  • Marvel hails achievement, unveils 10 new superhero film

Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame has ended Avatar’s decade-long reign as the world’s highest grossing film of all time.

Avengers Endgame 3x2

Avengers Endgame is now the highest grossing film of all time

Source: Marvel

Endgame, released worldwide in April, crossed the $2.79 billion mark at the box office, surpassing the $2.79 billion earned by James Cameron’s sci-fi hit Avatar when it was released in 2009.

The Marvel hit was recently re-released in cinemas with additional scenes, as it closed in on Avatar’s 10-year record. Prior to Avatar, another Cameron hit, Titanic, led at the box office, but Endgame replaced this as the second highest grosser following its release, before closing on top spot this weekend.

It means that Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed Endgame helmed two of the top five grossing films of all time (along with Avengers: Infinity War, which is fifth) along with Cameron. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, helmed by J. J. Abrams, makes up the top five.

Disney, which acquired Marvel Studios in 2009, is home to four of the top five following its acquisition of Fox, which owned the rights to Avatar, earlier this year. Overall, the Mouse House is home to seven of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time, four of which are in the Avengers series.

Alan Horn, co-chairman and chief creative officer of the Walt Disney Studios, said: “A huge congratulations to the Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios teams, and thank you to the fans around the world who lifted Avengers: Endgame to these historic heights.”

Endgame was the culmination of more than a decade of filmmaking and a storyline that spanned 22 films since Marvel released Iron Man back in 2008. At Comic Con in San Diego, Marvel unveiled its next slate of 10 superhero movies, seven of which are due to launch in 2021.

Marvel chief Kevin Feige hailed the achievement of Endgame during the event, even though it had yet to top Avatar, saying it would be “a matter of days” until the film became the “biggest film in history”.

Adjusted for inflation, Avatar is still ahead of Endgame (which sits in fifth) though both are behind 1939 classic Gone with the Wind.

Cameron, meanwhile, is working on a number of follow-ups to Avatar, with the first sequel set to be released in December 2021.

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