Last weekend The Curse of La Llorona scared up a decent $26.3 million to win the Easter weekend box office, the worst the box office has seen in more than a decade. Things are in for a big, cosmic shakeup this weekend as Avengers: Endgame is finally set to arrive in theaters. Marvel's latest, to no surprise, isn't just going to win the weekend, it's going to set records all over the globe. The only real question is, just how high can it fly?
Needless to say, virtually every studio is staying away from Endgame this weekend. There are no other wide releases making their way to theaters. Only a few additional options at the specialty box office and some day-and-date releases. So really, talking about anything other than Avengers: Endgame this week would be something of a futile exercise. Like sending Hawkeye to fight Thanos by his lonesome. So we're going to keep our focus mostly on round two with Thanos.
Even on the low end, Avengers: Endgame is set to make $260 million, which would best Infinity War ($257.6 million) for the new all time opening weekend record domestically. However, with pre-sale tickets alone eclipsing the $120 million mark, some analysts believe that number could climb as high as $300 million come Monday morning. That's especially staggering when taking into account the movie's running time of 3 hours and 2 minutes. For the sake of comparison, Infinity War clocked in at 2 hours and 29 minutes. Theaters have been adding showtimes left and right to keep up with the demand.
Related: Avengers: Endgame Premiere Gets a Surprise Visit from Natalie Portman
Looking at the global picture, the latest from directing duo Joe Russo and Anthony Russo has already made more than $100 million on its opening day in China, where it opened two days earlier than its scheduled U.S. release. It's now expected that it will make somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million in the Middle Kingdom over the course of its opening frame. Couple that with what it's expected to make in other markets around the globe and we could very possibly see Avenges: Endgame cross the $1 billion mark by Monday, which is a stunning figure even by Marvel standards.
Marvel Studios will benefit greatly from the fact that the movie has garnered very positive reviews up to this point. As of this writing, it holds a 97 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. That's not to say that moviegoers wouldn't have been lining up around the block to see it either way, but that could contribute greatly to its legs at the box office in the coming weeks and maybe, just maybe (but probably not), this could be the movie that finally takes down James Cameron's Avatar for the highest-grossing movie ever. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves on that one. Be sure to check out our full list of weekend box office predictions below and check back with us on Sunday for the weekend estimates. Numbers were provided by Box Office Mojo.
1Avengers: Endgame2The Curse of La Llorona3Shazam!4Breakthrough5Captain Marvel6Little7Dumbo8Pet Sematary9Us10Missing Link
