The Walt Disney Co. film delivered a record-shattering $1.22 billion in worldwide ticket sales during its opening weekend, including $356 million in the U. S. and Canada, according to studio estimates.
The unprecedented global box office success of “Avengers: Endgame” was a $1.22-billion boon for Walt Disney Co. and movie theaters around the world.
But it also, in a single weekend, encapsulated sweeping long-term changes in the movie business — one that is increasingly driven by global audiences, the rising power of social media, and multi-part movie franchises that act almost like TV shows for the big screen.
The Disney/Marvel film delivered a record-shattering $1.22 billion in worldwide ticket sales during its opening weekend, including $356 million in the U. S. and Canada, according to studio estimates reported Monday. That’s a level that some analysts thought would be impossible because of the logistical restrictions posed by the film’s 3-hour run time.
“Endgame” co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo on Monday partly credited social media conversations with creating an intense, global fear-of-missing-out among audiences for “Endgame,” driving more people to want to see it in theaters as soon as possible. If people wanted to talk about the movie with friends and avoid the risk of spoilers, they pretty much had to see it by Sunday.
The gargantuan performance was a “testament to serialized storytelling, [and] something that can only be made possible through social media and the collective global conversation about content,” Joe Russo said at a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills.
“There’s a very clear ratio between social conversations and success with these movies,” he added at the annual event held at the Beverly Hilton. “Social media is driving a different kind of consumption.”
“Endgame” is the culmination of 11 years of story lines in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and 21 prior movies featuring many of the world’s most popular heroes. The highly lucrative franchise has benefited from more than a decade of intense loyalty for the franchise among people who have gotten to know Iron Man/Tony Stark, Captain America/Steve Rogers, Thor and other characters over the course of the previous movies.
