Endgame Encore Leaves Avatar With a $39 Million Lead

Avengers: Endgame Encore opened to an estimated $86 million worldwide, putting the 2019 film $39 million behind Avatar. Disney’s studio estimates, released September 27, split that haul as $26 million in North America and $60 million overseas.

The September 25 return also rewrites the last minutes of a movie sold as a finale, and it does that work for Avengers: Doomsday, which arrives December 18 without U.S. IMAX screens.

Endgame Encore Opened to $86 Million Worldwide

Rentrak’s North American estimates put the encore at No. 1 from 3,060 theaters. Friday brought $11.2 million, Saturday $8.6 million, and Sunday $6.2 million. Thursday previews of $3.8 million sit inside the Friday figure. That $26 million is the third-best domestic start for a re-release, behind the 1997 return of Star Wars at $35.9 million and the 2011 Lion King 3D run at $30.2 million.

Disney called the global debut the second-highest ever for a re-release. Overseas, the $60 million trail only Titanic 3D in 2012, which did $67 million at then-current rates on the back of China. Andrew Cripps, Disney’s global boss of distribution, said the fact that this is “a 7-year-old movie on Disney+” makes the opening “incredible.”

The encore took $86 million at the global box office and lifted Endgame’s lifetime total to $2.885 billion. The original 2019 run had stopped at $2.799 billion. Domestic lifetime is now $884 million, which keeps Endgame third in North America. The film also crossed $2 billion overseas, a line only Avatar had previously cleared.

Marvel Studios said the weekend pushed the studio to $35.075 billion across 38 films. Marvel Studios also posted that the encore was the No. 1 movie in the world.

Avengers Endgame: Encore is the #1 movie in the world.
 
Experience the return of Avengers Endgame: Encore, back in theaters everywhere. Get tickets now: https://t.co/BqAjEHmxDg pic.twitter.com/boXTvA4bQL

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) September 27, 2026

NORTH AMERICAN WEEKEND

China led the encore’s foreign map at $13.5 million, with the United Kingdom at $5.4 million and Mexico at $4.2 million. Italy and Japan each did $2.6 million, India $2.8 million, Brazil $2.2 million, France $2.1 million, Germany $2.0 million, and Spain $1.7 million. In the Philippines, Forgotten Island still outgrossed it.

Loki Knocks During the Last Dance

The encore is the 2019 cut plus about four minutes shot during Doomsday. Co-director Anthony Russo told Marvel.com the brothers were not going to mess with that movie. The new footage still changes how the last reel lands, and that is the product people bought.

Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter still dance. Then someone knocks. Peggy opens the door and asks if she can help. Loki, in Time Variance Authority gear, answers, “No. But I believe I can help you. Both of you.” The 2019 film ended on that dance. This one will not let it close.

THE FOUR NEW MINUTES

• The dance: Loki walks into Steve and Peggy’s retirement and ties their branch to the TVA story Doomsday is selling.
• The bunker: Bruce Banner, last seen wrecked in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, records himself working on a Hulk-suppressing serum until Doctor Doom arrives and says, “I’m here to collect you.”
• The TVA floor: Mobius and Ouroboros watch universes collide until the count runs toward 3,000 and Ouroboros says the multiverse is collapsing.
• The hammer: The original end-credits clang from Tony Stark forging his first armor now cuts against flashes of Doom hammering his mask.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Doom, not Tony Stark. Russo has said there is a moment at the end of the encore “where the moment has a different meaning.” Fans who already own the movie on Disney+ paid again to see whether that meaning is a door knock or a new villain’s origin. The louder complaint in the replies is not the gross. It is that the last dance now has a sequel hook bolted on.

The 2019 Crown Lasted Until China

Endgame has been here before. It passed Avatar in July 2019, then lost the title when Avatar went back out in China in March 2021. That China run added about $58 million and put James Cameron’s film back on top by a few million dollars. Avatar has been adding re-release money ever since. Endgame, until this month, had not.

THE TITLE FIGHT SINCE 2019

1. July 2019: Endgame passes Avatar and is called the highest-grossing film of all time, unadjusted.
2. March 2021: A China re-release puts Avatar back ahead, at about $2.802 billion against Endgame’s $2.797 billion.
3. September 25, 2026: Endgame Encore opens with four new minutes and an estimated $86 million worldwide.
4. September 27, 2026: Disney puts Endgame at $2.885 billion, $39 million behind Avatar’s $2.924 billion.

The 2019 original opened to $1.2 billion worldwide and $357 million domestic, then a North American record. Spider-Man: Brand New Day took that domestic opening record this summer at $360 million and now sits third all time at $2.495 billion worldwide. Endgame still has the better lifetime, and it still does not have the crown it held for 20 months.

Why Disney Owns Both Sides of the Race

Disney closed its purchase of 21st Century Fox in 2019. Avatar lives at 20th Century Studios. Endgame lives at Marvel Studios. The parent company books the gross either way. The all-time worldwide box office chart still prints a 1 and a 2, and the labels still matter to fans who treat this as Marvel versus Cameron. On a cash-flow sheet it is one house counting two catalogs.

We thought about Endgame, for a lot of reasons, as the end.

Anthony Russo, co-director, Marvel.com interview

Russo thought about Endgame as the end when he and Joe Russo were finishing the Infinity Saga. The encore exists because that bookend is now a bridge. Doomsday, also from the Russos, needs the old audience in the room before December. The $39 million chase is advertising with a receipt.

Verified Moviegoer scores on Rotten Tomatoes sit at 96% across more than 1,000 ratings for this run. PostTrak came in at 5 out of 5 from general and family audiences. The movie still plays. The argument is what Marvel is willing to alter to keep it playing.

Infinity Vision Screens Took 52%

Disney opened the encore in more than 3,000 theaters and put more than 1,300 of them under Infinity Vision, a new premium large-format certificate the company is rolling out with exhibitors. Those rooms accounted for about 52% of the opening-weekend figure. Laser projection, the largest screens a chain will certify, and premium audio are the pitch. IMAX still took a separate $13.7 million, $4 million of it domestic and $9.7 million abroad.

WHERE THE PREMIUM SCREENS WENT

• Footprint: 3,060 North American theaters, with more than 1,300 billed as Infinity Vision.
• Share: Infinity Vision rooms drove about 52% of the opening-weekend gross.
• IMAX cash: $13.7 million worldwide, $4 million of it in the United States and Canada.
• Audience poll: PostTrak 5 out of 5; 96% Verified Moviegoer.

That mix is a dry run. If Marvel can mint a premium format that is not IMAX, December gets a little less ugly. If it cannot, the encore’s 52% is a warning about how much of a Marvel opening now lives on the big glass.

No American IMAX Dates for Doomsday

Doomsday shares December 18 with Dune: Part Three. IMAX has already given Denis Villeneuve’s film the exclusive U.S. IMAX run in December, including IMAX 70mm. Doomsday still plays IMAX overseas. In the United States it will lean on Dolby Cinema and Infinity Vision, the same rooms that just carried more than half of Endgame’s encore.

The date was not always Christmas. Doomsday had been aimed at May, then slid into Villeneuve’s slot after neither studio moved. Warner Bros. kept the IMAX cameras argument, and IMAX kept the screens for the film shot in part with its film cameras. Marvel’s answer, this month, was to send a seven-year-old finale back out with Doom in the credits and call the format Infinity Vision.

That is the downside sitting inside the $86 million. The encore can still chase Avatar on ordinary and certified-premium screens. The new Avengers movie it exists to sell cannot do the same trick in American IMAX, which is where Marvel’s last two era-defining openings did their loudest business.

Avatar Still Holds a $39 Million Lead

Unadjusted worldwide totals still put Cameron in front. Endgame already won North America, $884 million to Avatar’s $785 million. The global gap is the foreign account, and China is where Avatar last flipped the ranking.

THE ALL-TIME BOARD AFTER THE ENCORE

The remaining $39 million is less than half of what the encore just grossed in three days. A second weekend that holds even a fraction of $86 million worldwide would finish the job on paper. Avatar has answered that kind of surge with another re-release before, and both titles report to the same parent. Ticket buyers are still paying to watch Loki walk into a scene they already know by heart, which is a stranger flex than the ranking it might buy.