The presidential candidate said $1.2 billion that came in for the film’s opening could help guarantee a
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist from Vermont who is mounting his second bid for the White House, lists nearly two dozen issues on his website that he would like to tackle as president, from fighting for disability rights to empowering tribal nations.
The independent senator teased a new cause on Monday — or, at least, a new tactic in his long-standing crusade against income inequality. He suggested a way of avenging workers at Walt Disney Co., where, last year, the median employee made 1/1,424 as much as Bob Iger, the chief executive of the mass media and entertainment empire. The candidate didn’t don armor, brandish a red-white-and-blue shield or wield an Infinity Stone.
Instead, he wrote on Twitter that more than $1 billion in estimated gross sales from “Avengers: Endgame” — the conclusion to the 11-year superhero epic from Disney’s Marvel Studios — could go to ensuring that workers at the company earned a “middle class wage.” That deed, he said, “would be truly heroic.”
It was unclear how committed Sanders was to this proposition. (Disney, meanwhile, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.)
So, too, it remained a mystery whether Sanders had caught a glimpse of the on-screen action, perhaps finding in a dark cinema a 182-minute respite from the bright lights of the campaign trail. His campaign kicked off a national organizing drive this weekend with about 5,000 house parties across the country.
Five thousand is also how many last-minute showtimes AMC Theatres added in the United States — bringing its total number of showings to more than 63,000.
The superhero film made more than $1.2 billion worldwide, becoming the only movie in history to surpass $1 billion in its debut. Its predecessor, “Avengers: Infinity War,” previously held the record for highest-ever box-office total for opening weekend, bringing in $640 million last year.
