2024 has been a difficult one at the box office. While there have been some high-profile hits like Dune: Part Two and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, the summer movie season has gotten off to a rough start as many high-profile films like The Fall Guy, IF, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga have all massively underperformed.
Plenty of doom and gloom has been written about this and how, so far, the movie has opened to what has become the expected metric of success: a $100+ opening weekend.
This phenomenon is still rather new, actually, as it was a barrier broken 22 years ago with the release of Spider-Man in 2002. That film became the first movie to ever open above $100 million and set an opening weekend box office record. Yet it was a rarity at the time where it did feel like a big deal when Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Spider-Man 3, or The Dark Knight would break those records.
Starting around the mid-2010s, this became a rather common practice. Currently, 74 movies have been able to break this opening weekend record in the United States (not counting extended holiday weekends), and of those, only 12 were before 2010, and 13 have been post the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning 49 were between 2010 and 2019.
These massive opening weekends began to set a precedent for what determined a movie’s success. This certainly has not been healthy for moviegoing as it puts a lot of expectation on opening weekends, but it is interesting to look at and see what movies drove audiences out.
With 74 films, that means even major blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water,Top Gun: Maverick, Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2, Toy Story 3, and Furious 7 all had massive openings but are not even in the top 20 biggest opening weekends of all time. Here are the 20 biggest three-day opening weekends at the domestic box office.
20 Barbie (2023)
$162 Million
The latest film on this list is the biggest movie of 2023. Barbie was easily the most anticipated movie of 2023, and paired with the release of Oppenheimer on the same weekend, it became a cultural phenomenon like Barbenheimer.
Released on July 21, 2023, Barbie was a cultural phenomenon as audiences rushed out to the theater dressed up in cosplay as Barbie. The movie opened to $162 million in its opening weekend, showcasing how people were willing to rush out to the theater when a movie feels like an event.
Barbie‘s opening weekend wasn’t the only impressive feat. It stayed number one at the box office for four weeks straight and stayed in the top five for eight weeks. Despite being number 20 on the biggest opening weekends on this list, Barbie grossed $636 million at the domestic box office, which makes it the highest-grossing movie from Warner Bros. Combine with $1.4 billion worldwide, Barbie was an event movie that many will remember for a long time.
19 Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
$166 million
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
- Release Date
- March 24, 2016
- Runtime
- 2h 32m
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was a movie event years in the making. Even before the prospect of the DCEU, fans had wanted to see the two legendary superheroes share the silver screen for decades, with a movie version almost happening in 2004.
By the time Batman V. Superman arrived in theaters on March 25, 2016, it was promised to be the start of an exciting new cinematic universe. Audiences were excited, and based on the name alone, Batman V. Superman opened to an impressive $166 million in its opening weekend and to this day still holds the record for the biggest Easter opening weekend.
Despite having a massive opening weekend, Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice is a great showcase for how word of mouth can sink a movie. Despite having a massive opening weekend, Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice had a terrible 69.1% drop in its second weekend and just kept falling down the charts.
The film grossed $330 million domestically, which for any other movie would have been great, but it was seen as a disappointment by Warner Bros. for a movie featuring their two biggest superheroes. Even with $874 million worldwide, it was enough to make Warner Bros. shift into damage control for Suicide Squad and Justice League.
18 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Pt. 2 (2011)
$169 Million
The final film in the Harry Potter franchise was an event ten years in the making. The Harry Potter films were the defining movie franchise for a decade, as an entire generation rushed out to midnight screenings. Much of the film landscape today can trace its roots back to Harry Potter as the film series set records, including the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone, setting the all-time biggest opening weekend when it opened in 2001.
It was only fitting then that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, the final film in the franchise, would earn that record again in 2011 with a $169 million opening weekend, taking the crown from The Dark Knight.
The Harry Potter franchise continued onwards with the less successful Fantastic Beasts films, and now what looks like an ill-advised live-action series for Max that will remake the books. J.K. Rowling has become a rather toxic part of the overall brand that has hurt the franchise’s long-term legacy for a new generation, it might be hard to imagine how much the Harry Potter films were an important part of many people’s lives.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 was the only movie in the summer movie season of 2011 to break $100 million in its opening weekend and would go on to gross $381 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide, becoming the first and only Potter film to break the $1 billion dollar ceiling until rereleases of The Sorcerer Stone.
17 Iron Man 3 (2013)
$174.1 Million
Iron Man 3
- Release Date
- April 18, 2013
- Runtime
- 130
- Tagline
- Unleash the power behind the armor.
The Iron Man movies were big, but following the success of The Avengers in the summer of 2012, every MCU hero got an Avengers bump, with Iron Man getting the biggest.
Iron Man 3 kicked off the summer movie season on May 3, 2013, with $174.1 million in its first three days, a $46 million increase from Iron Man 2‘s $128 million just three years earlier. It went on to be the biggest movie of the summer with $409 million domestic and $1.2 billion worldwide, the first for an Iron Man movie and only the second MCU movie to cross the $1 billion milestone after The Avengers.
While Iron Man 3 was the second highest-grossing film that year both the domestic (behind Hunger Games: Catching Fire) and worldwide (behind Frozen), it was clear that The Avengers had made the MCU one of the biggest brands in the world and that all the characters in the film would benefit from it. Iron Man 3 cemented the fact that the age of Marvel Studios had truly begun, as many more films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will appear on this list.
16 Beauty of the Beast (2017)
$174.4 Million
Tale as old as time, true as it can be. While Disney had turned many of their beloved animated classics into live-action films that became box office hits like Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book, those were reimaginings of the classic films from Walt Disney’s tenure.
When Disney finally dipped its toes into remaking a beloved piece from the Disney Renaissance, one that audiences who saw as children were now adults to be nostalgic for the originals and maybe had children of their own, it was a recipe for success. Beauty and the Beast opened in theaters on March 17, 2017, and defined expectations to gross $174.4 million in its opening weekend. To this day, it still holds the biggest opening weekend for March.
Beauty and the Beast wasn’t just a big hit in its opening weekend, but one that stuck around as a consistent family film for the holiday season. It was still in the top 5 two months after it opened and as the summer movie season had begun. Domestically, it grossed $504 million, while worldwide, it brought in $1.2 billion.
While Disney’s live-action remakes of their animated classics were part of their business model, following the incredible box office of Beauty and the Beast, they went into overdrive. Remakes of other Disney Renaissance films like The Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan, and The Little Mermaid were fast-tracked into production.
15 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
$177 Million
The final entry in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and also what was dubbed the Skywalker Saga, expectations were high for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The movie not only had to contend with the controversial reaction to The Last Jedi but also the box office flop of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Opening on December 20, 2019, the film opened to $179 million over the three-day weekend.
This is great for most movies, but was seen as a bit of a disappointment for The Rise of Skywalker as it was below both the opening weekend of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker did have some factors working against it, notably that it opened just five days before Christmas, which did impact its opening weekend as many audiences might have been traveling, which explains why it had a smaller drop-off in its second weekend.
The film had a mixed to negative reaction, but it goes to show the unrealistic expectations put on some movies that The Rise of Skywalker could earn $515 million domestically and $1.07 billion could be seen as disappointing. With theaters shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic just three months after The Rise of Skywalker opened, this would be the last $100+ opening weekend for two years until the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021.
14 Captain America: Civil War (2016)
$179 Million
captain america 3
- Release Date
- April 27, 2016
- Director
- Anthony Russo
- Runtime
- 146
- Tagline
- Whose side are you on?
Captain America: Civil War kicked off the summer movie season in 2016 on May 6th. The film was just as much Avengers 2.5 as it was Captain America 3 as it not only brought in Avengers like Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Vision, Scarlet Witch, War Machine, and The Falcon but also introduced new characters into the MCU like Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther and Tom Holland as Spider-Man.
All that, combined with early positive reviews, which Marvel allowed to drop two weeks before the movie opened, allowed Captain America: Civil War to reach an Avengers-level opening weekend of $179 million, an $84 million increase from Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s $95 million opening weekend two years prior.
In 2014, CinemaSins released a video about how the then-only titled Captain America 3 would be crushed at the box office by Batman V.Superman: Dawn of Justice, as at one point, they had the same release date before BvS moved. Not only did Captain America: Civil War have a bigger opening weekend, it outgrossed it both domestically with $408 million and worldwide with $1.15 billion to become the highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide.
2016 was truly the year of Disney domination as the top 5 films that year at the worldwide box office was Disney with Captain America: Civil War, followed by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Finding Dory, Zootopia, and The Jungle Book.
13 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
$181 Million
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a movie audiences were anticipating, but not entirely for a positive reason. Normally, the sequel to a cultural phenomenon, box office juggernaut, and Academy Award Best Picture nominee would be something to celebrate, but following the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020 to cancer, the entire plot of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had to be reworked.
Audiences were curious not just about who the Black Panther would be but also how the movie would work around and honor the legacy of Chadwick Boseman and if it could do so in a tasteful manner. Audiences turned out in massive drove to an impressive $181 million opening weekend.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s $181 million opening weekend was the second best of 2022, behind only another Marvel movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It also broke the record for the biggest opening weekend for the month of November.
Despite all that and the fact that Spider-Man: No Way Home shattered box office records in 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic, a narrative started to form that Marvel was losing its grip, and people were becoming tired of it. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s $181 million opening weekend can only be seen as a disappointment when compared to Black Panther‘s $200 million opening weekend, whereas most other films would do anything for that type of gross.
The same can be said for Wakanda Forever‘s $453 million domestic total and $859 million worldwide, which is even more impressive considering this was after the COVID-19 pandemic.
12 Incredibles 2 (2018)
$182 Million
Incredibles 2
- Release Date
- June 14, 2018
- Runtime
- 126
- Tagline
- Back to work.
Incredibles 2 arrived in theaters on June 15, 2018, and was a sequel 14 years in the making. Ever since The Incredibles hit in 2004, fans have waited for a sequel, and of all the Pixar movies, it seems like the most obvious one to get a sequel.
Those years of waiting paid off as a generation who grew up with the original turned out as did a new generation who grew up with The Incredibles as an animated classic. Incredibles 2 opened to $182 million, which to this day is still the biggest opening for an animated movie.
Incredibles 2 ended up grossing $608 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Pixar film. Summer 2018 was filled with box office hits like Incredibles 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Deadpool 2, and Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which led to an impressive year run at the movies.
Fans are now eagerly awaiting an Incredibles 3, and based on the box office results, Disney and Pixar likely want one to happen sooner rather than later.
11 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
$187 million
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness being this high up is likely something nobody expected, even Marvel. Yet the movie was the immediate follow-up to Spider-Man: No Way Home, and with the film’s trailer teasing more secret Marvel cameos and possibly old actors returning to their parts, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness became the biggest opening weekend of 2022 with $187 million, $102 million more than what Doctor Strange opened to in 2016.
The film grossed $411 million domestically and $955 million worldwide, an accomplishment made more impressive by the fact that this was just a year after theaters opened following the COVID-19 pandemic closure, and the movie did not open in China.
Many suspect that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had such a massive opening weekend that audiences rushed out in fear of having major potential cameos spoiled for them, a similar phenomenon that drove audiences out to see Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s opening weekend. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had rumors for almost a year, ranging from Tom Cruise as the Superior Iron Man to Eric Bana returning as the Hulk.
Despite featuring Patrick Stewart as Professor X and a fun fan-service one-off cameo of John Krasinski as Mister Fantastic, some audience expectations built up in their head were not met by the movie, which, in all fairness, never promised all that. So, despite an incredible box office gross, some called Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness a disappointment when it was far from it.
10 Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
$191.2 Million
Avengers: Age of Ultron had a lot of expectations set upon it. It was the highly anticipated sequel to 2012’s The Avengers, which set the opening weekend box office record in 2012 and fully established the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the franchise model that every studio would follow.
In the three years since that film, the Marvel brand has only grown with successful films like Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as a successful step into television with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Daredevil. Avengers: Age of Ultron was going to be a smash hit, and though it came in below expectations of the first film, it was only by about $10 million dollars as Age of Ultron grossed $191.2 million in its first three days.
Obviously, coming in just below the opening weekend of The Avengers was a disappointment, but to be so close shows that the audience was all in on the MCU brand, and just that initial excitement of The Avengers pulling off a massive crossover for the first time was going to be difficult to follow up on. Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed $459 million domestically and $1.4 billion worldwide.
Despite all that, it was slightly overshadowed by the critical reaction for Mad Max: Fury Road two weeks later, then Jurassic World became the biggest movie that summer, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens being the movie event of 2015 and the highest-grossing film Disney released that year. Avengers: Age of Ultron is a great example of how big box office expectations can make a hit look disappointing and put a lot of it into perspective.
9 The Lion King (2019)
$191.7 Million
The Lion King
- Release Date
- July 12, 2019
- Tagline
- The King has Returned.
The 1994 animated original The Lion King was one of the biggest movies of the 1990s and was second at the box office in 1994 behind only Forest Gump. To this day, it is still the highest-grossing hand-drawn animated movie, so that meant Disney’s 2019 photorealistic animated (sold as live-action) remake, The Lion King, would be a hit.
Yet it feels like nobody was ready for how big a hit the movie would be. The Lion King opened on July 19, 2019, and grossed $191.7 million in its first three days, with a total of $543 domestic and $1.13 billion worldwide.
Despite being a massive box office hit by every metric, the movie received mixed reactions from audiences and critics alike who criticized the uncanny valley effect of the animals. Disney did greenlight a prequel from director Barry Jenkins titled Mufasa: The Lion King that is now set for release in December 2024. While it likely won’t make as much as the first film, the question is how much of a gap.
As with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avengers: Age of Ultron, they were smash hit sequels whose only crime was not being able to match the box office highs of their record-breaking predecessors. Yet Mufasa: The Lion King might be more like Alice Through the Looking Glass, another Disney attempt to franchise a live-action film whose original received mixed reviews from fans and critics that resulted in audiences not turning out for the follow-up. Only time will tell.
8 Black Panther (2018)
$202 Million
Black Panther
- Release Date
- February 13, 2018
- Runtime
- 134
- Tagline
- Long live the king
The first $200 million-plus opening weekend on this list. Black Panther was a full-blown phenomenon when it hit theaters on February 16, 2018. The months leading up to the movie’s release had a wave of positive buzz as the film was seen as a major step in the representation of a blockbuster movie. There were organized efforts to take schools of kids to see Black Panther in theaters, and it felt like a summer blockbuster early in the year.
The movie grossed $202 million over the three-day weekend, and that is not even counting the fact that it was a four-day holiday weekend for Presidents’ Day, which would make it $242 million.
Black Panther was a box office juggernaut, holding the number one spot for five weeks in a row and remaining in the top 10 for three months, including getting a boost as it was playing in theaters at the same time Avengers: Infinity War was. It was the highest-grossing opening weekend for a solo superhero movie, beating more recognizable names like Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman.
Black Panther grossed $700 million domestically, and it even topped the domestic total for Avengers: Infinity War to be the year’s highest-grossing movie at the domestic market. With a worldwide total of $1.3 billion and six Academy Award nominations, including becoming the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Picture, Black Panther was an event that lived up to the hype.
7 The Avengers (2012)
$207 Million
The Avengers changed everything. In the summer of 2012, there seemed to be a ceiling for how high the MCU movies could go as Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were $300 million domestic earners, but The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger all grossed between $130 to $180 million. Most people expected The Avengers to be a hit, but nobody could have anticipated how much audiences would be driven to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes unite.
Opening on May 4, 2012, The Avengers became the first movie in history to gross over $200 million in its opening weekend by bringing in $207 million in three days, taking the record for the biggest opening weekend that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 had set just ten months prior.
The Avengers opening weekend could be chalked up to curiosity by audiences to see all these different characters come together, yet audiences kept coming back in the following weeks. It held the number-one spot for three weeks straight, with its second weekend grossing $103 million and setting the record for the biggest second weekend for a movie at the time.
It concluded its run with a $623 million domestic total and $1.5 billion worldwide, not only becoming the first MCU to cross $1 billion worldwide, but was the highest-grossing movie of 2012 and, at the time, the third highest-grossing movie of all time, behind only Titanic and Avatar. The Avengers’ success marked a major shift in Hollywood, one that is still being felt today.
6 Jurassic World (2015)
$208 Million
Jurassic World
- Release Date
- June 6, 2015
- Runtime
- 100
- Tagline
- The Park Is Open.
Jurassic World was the first Jurassic Park film in 14 years following the disappointment of Jurassic Park 3. While Jurassic Park is still one of the biggest summer blockbusters of all time, there was a question about how big a new Jurassic Park movie could be in a landscape that seemed to be dominated by superheroes.
It turns out that audiences’ love of dinosaurs is just universal as Jurassic World opened to a record-breaking $208 million opening weekend, taking the crown from The Avengers from the biggest opening weekend of the time (although it would only have it for six months before losing it to The Force Awakens).
The prospect of delivering on the premise of a dinosaur theme park being open that Jurassic Park teased in 1993 finally came true 22 years later with Jurassic World on a premise that audiences just couldn’t resist.
Despite mixed reviews, audiences embraced the film, and the movie held the number one spot for three weeks, with its second weekend bringing in $106 million and holding off Pixar’s Inside Out from taking the number one spot despite it having an impressive $90 million opening weekend.
Jurassic World was the summer’s highest-grossing movie, grossing $652 million domestically and $1.08 million worldwide. The sequels to Jurassic World also all crossed $1 billion worldwide, but none of them quite captured the zeitgeist the way the first film did.
5 Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
$220 Million
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
Star Wars: The Last Jedi and much of the sequel trilogies, online perception is for some divisive nature, so it is easy to forget how excited audiences were for the movies. Star Wars: The Last Jedi had a great deal of hype behind it, being the sequel to the successful The Force Awakens, and the audience was invested in the further adventures of Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8, and Kylo Ren.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi had a massive three-day opening weekend, grossing $220 million in its first three days, which made it the biggest opening of 2017 but also, at the time, the second-biggest opening weekend behind only The Force Awakens.
Following The Last Jedi, there has been a narrative that it was a box-office disappointment because it grossed less than The Force Awakens. If that is the case, then The Empire Strikes Back is also a disappointment because it grossed less than Star Wars. Topping The Force Awakens was always going to be next to impossible because it was a rare once-in-a-franchise event, but The Last Jedi was still a box office hit by every metric.
With a total of $620 million domestically and a total of $1.3 billion worldwide, it was the highest-grossing movie both domestically and worldwide. The Last Jedi was a box office hit, despite what some very loud minority of fans want to believe.
4 Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
$247 Million
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
The anticipation behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens was an event like never before, and even the following three movies that opened bigger might not truly top the anticipation behind this film.
Not only was it the return of Star Wars to the big screen after many assumed the series was done after Revenge of the Sith, but it was also going to be the first time in 32 years that audiences saw Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on screen. With a teaser trailer that debuted a whole year before the movie opened and a plot that was kept highly secretive, it felt like all of 2015 was audiences eagerly awaiting The Force Awakens.
By the time it came out, it set the record for the biggest opening weekend with $247 million.
The Force Awakens didn’t just open big, it was a movie event that audiences kept coming back to. It remained number one at the box office for a whole month and was in the top five for ten weeks. Its domestic total was $936 million, which still makes it the highest-grossing film at the domestic box office, not adjusted for inflation.
Meanwhile, its worldwide total brought it to $2 billion, which makes it the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time at the worldwide box office, even outgrossing the next two films on this list. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the event film of 2015 and truly can be seen as a kick-off for an impressive box office run Disney would have in 2016 all the way until 2019.
3 Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
$257 Million
If any franchise was going to come close to topping Star Wars, it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avengers: Infinity War was marketed as the event the MCU had been building for ten years (the film also came out on Marvel Studios’ big 10-year celebration), and being the film immediately following Black Panther, it made the movie even bigger.
Finally, teasing the arrival of Thanos and shows a massive spectacle that united The Avengers, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy into one film. The movie looked to recapture the same magic The Avengers did back in 2012 with even more characters, and audiences turned out in droves as it grossed $257 million in its first three days.
The massive opening for Avengers: Infinity War was a good thing for audiences as it was for Disney, as the cliffhanger ending of Thanos snapping half the life in the universe and the film ending on such a downbeat note certainly made it a talking point and helped drive engagement for the next film. Avengers: Infinity War grossed $678 million domestically and $2.05 billion worldwide.
The film’s popularity was clear as Thanos, a character who had only been teased in after-credit moments and one brief scene in Guardians of the Galaxy four years prior, instantly became a household name. Anticipation was on for the sequel, one that Marvel Studios would deliver.
2 Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
$260 million
Spider-Man 3 / Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Release Date
- December 17, 2021
- Cast
- Angourie Rice , Tom Holland , Zendaya Coleman , Marisa Tomei , J.K. Simmons , Benedict Cumberbatch , Willem Dafoe , Jamie Foxx , Alfred Molina , Tobey Maguire , Andrew Garfield
- Runtime
- 2hr 28min
- Tagline
- The Multiverse Unleashed.
While Top Gun: Maverick is often seen as the movie that truly saved theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, it really was Spider-Man: No Way Home that marked a return to massive audience turnout in movies that felt like a distant memory following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite Sony Pictures’ best attempts to hide the presence of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in the movie, it was the worst-kept secret in Hollywood that turned what would already be a highly anticipated film in the Spider-Man franchise into an Avengers-level event. Spider-Man: No Way Home opened to $260 million in its opening weekend, which made it the second-biggest opening weekend of all time, which seemed like a miracle following the COVID-19 pandemic.
2002’s Spider-Man, starring Tobey Maguire, set the box office record for the biggest opening weekend of all time and also became the first movie to gross more than $100 million in its first three days. It was only fitting that 19 years later, another Spider-Man movie featuring Tobey Maguire would help save the box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home was number one for four weeks and then reclaimed the number one spot for two more weeks later in its run.
The movie grossed $804 million domestically, even outgrossing Avengers: Infinity War at the domestic market, and brought in $1.9 billion worldwide. It helped keep momentum for the big summer movie season of 2022 with hits like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Top Gun: Maverick, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and Thor: Love and Thunder that showed moviegoing could return to a sense of normal.
1 Avengers: Endgame (2019)
$357 million
Avengers: Endgame
- Release Date
- April 24, 2019
- Runtime
- 180
- Tagline
- Part of the journey is the end.
Avengers: Endgame is likely the biggest movie event many people will see in their lifetime. Following Avengers: Infinity cliffhanger ending, audiences were on the edge of their seats to see how the film would resolve this major conflict.
To not spoil anything, Marvel Studios held off on revealing the title until six months before its release, and trailers used barely any footage, instead hyping audiences on this being the conclusion to the Infinity Saga (minus Spider-Man: Far From Home opening three months later). The demand to see the movie was high and not be spoiled that Avengers: Endgame opened to $357 million on its opening weekend, the first movie ever to cross the $300 million mark.
To understand how big Avengers: Endgame was, the movie grossed $157 million on its first day, which is only $3 million shy of how much Barbie opened to in three days. In its second weekend, it grossed $147 million, which is what some movies hope to make in their opening weekend and what some movies dream of grossing through their entire run.
Avengers: Endgame grossed $858 million domestically and $2.79 billion worldwide, being the second highest-grossing film of all time worldwide behind only Avatar. Avengers: Endgame was a movie event unlike any before it and one many of us will likely never see again in our lifetime. This means the films following it not reaching this height should be seen as failures, just that this was a perfect storm of events that likely can never be replicated again.
