This week Avengers: Endgame came within just $50 million of toppling Avatar’s domestic box office record, after a $3.51 million weekend brought it to an eye-watering $2,742,491,359 global gross. While it came close to Avatar’s record-holding $2,787,965,087, it seemed like Endgame just wouldn’t be able to top it, as more and more summer releases began to force it out of screens.
That is, until Marvel apparently decided to just re-release. Next weekend is probably the ideal slot for Endgame’s re-release, although Disney’s aversion to re-releasing its home titles has reared its head again. Yes, it’s a smart move to re-release Endgame less than a week before Spider-Man: Far From Home comes out. It will almost certainly generate enough business to edge it past Avatar at the worldwide box office. However, I’d counter that what would be even better than a few minutes of new footage (I seriously doubt they’re going to make a 3-hour movie significantly longer) is to simply re-release both Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and make that a bit of an event in and of itself where fans can see the whole two-part saga back-to-back. But I suppose the counterpoint there is that it’s harder to get in more screenings of Endgame that way, and if your eye is on beating Avatar, you need as many Endgame screenings as possible.
The question now becomes whether or not the new footage is really worth it. The Russos made their cuts for a reason, so I doubt there’s anything essential that’s being re-added to the picture. But for die-hard fans who want to see everything Endgame has to offer, they’ll likely be making another trek to the theater.
