Avengers Endgame Box Office Record Broken:
Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie of all time and ended up grossing $2.8 Billion worldwide. At one point it seemed that the film will cross the $3 Billion mark, but because everyone had already seen the film in a hurry & then had their repeated viewings as well, the earnings dropped significantly and Avengers: Endgame crawled its way up to $2.8 Billion after a rerelease. This was enough to become the number one movie and beat James Cameron’s Avatar. But keeping in mind the current situation and the coming future, no other film will ever be able to make this big of a number at the Box Office, and there are various reasons for that. Let’s look into those:
The Coronavirus
COVID-19 isn’t just killing real people but it is also killing artificial people/business entities. Life won’t just go back to Normal once we fully emerge from the Coronavirus since many businesses are going to shut down and preventive measures and it is going to take a really long time for the surviving businesses to return to glory. Due to the Coronavirus, theatre chains are out of business of now. never has the Box Office dropped to 0 in the last 20-25 years.
Once the Coronavirus will end it could be possible that most theatre chains might remain closed permanently. If that happens, then the number of theatres showing films will be lesser. In order to take precautions, there will be less number of people who will be willing to go out to the movie theatres and watch films. All in all, the less number of people and the less number of theatres gives us surety that Avengers: Endgame will not be beaten. When Endgame came out, theatre chains ran for almost 24 hours, increasing the number of screenings to accommodate people. That cannot happen at least for the next 10 years.
The Hype
Avengers: Endgame raised a massive hype over 10 years. People go so attached to characters like Iron Man, Thor & Captain America because they got to spend trilogies & several crossovers with these characters. The hype got so much because these characters also set the basis for other characters to join them. And now, they’ve left the MCU with several other characters. We do like characters like Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel or Spider-Man, but we do not like them to the level of Iron Man or Captain America. And with Marvel introducing even more new characters, the screen time for each character will get substantially less, and the sequels will take a lot of time to get made.
Since there are so many projects now, getting those done & converging them into an Avengers crossover event would become very difficult. As opposed to an Avengers film coming out every 3 years, it will now take Marvel at least 5 between 2 Avengers films now. So, no other Marvel movie could raise enough hype. Also because there are tons of superhero movies & other big budget movies that will arrive every year, the hype for one particular film could never be built up to the level of Endgame.
This was just the Marvel films we were talking about. But we’re saying that no other franchise could ever raise the hype enough that a film would end up making $2.8 Billion. Most franchises that we know are coming to an end. Fast & Furious 10 will mark the end of the core franchise. Jurassic World isn’t as big. DC will never be as big due to the failure of their “connected shared Universe”. Star Wars has already peaked at the theatres with The Force Awakens, and surely doesn’t carry the same value especially after the way Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ended.
Avatar might actually stand a chance to be the one to raise a massive hype for the franchise, but it certainly won’t happen right from Avatar 2. People saw Avatar back in 2009. They aren’t going to relate to Avatar unless it is extremely good. To get even remotely closer to its former glory, the next 3 upcoming Avatar films will have to be so good that people are forced to run to the theatres like they were during Endgame. But then again, there would still be the logistical problem of the number of screenings in a particular region.
Streaming Services
With Netflix, Prime & Disney+, most studios are deploying resources onto the streaming services. There are 2 other big name streaming services that are about to hit the market – HBO Max & NBC Universal’s streaming service. So, the growth in original content on the streaming services is exponential. People are actually impressed with the “theatrical movie level” content that is available on the streaming services. So, they are actually motivated to watch the content they’ve subscribed for, rather than going to the theatres to watch films every other weekend. The growth of the streaming services will ultimately lead to a loss of business for movies at the theatres. It won’t be a massive loss, but this loss will be enough to prevent any film from ever breaking the record of Avengers: Endgame.
Do you think any other film would ever be able to do what Endgame did? Tell us in the comments.
