Endgame Encore Is Back and Chasing Avatar's Box Office Record

Seven years after it first hit theaters — and after years of streaming free on Disney+ — Avengers: Endgame is back at number one. The Marvel epic returned to cinemas on September 25, 2026, in a new cut called Endgame Encore, and its opening weekend hauled in about eighty-six million dollars worldwide, topping the global box office. Tracking reports now say the film could pass Avatar to reclaim the all-time worldwide record as early as this coming weekend, according to AP reporting on the box-office race.

The Encore cut gives fans a reason to buy tickets to a movie they can watch at home: four minutes of new footage, a new post-credits scene, an exclusive glimpse of the next Avengers film, and an introductory thank-you from Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. According to Hypebeast's breakdown of the opening weekend, the reissue earned about twenty-six million dollars across 3,060 North American theaters, plus about sixty million from international markets — more than double the domestic haul.

For a re-release, that is an enormous number. Box-office analyst David A. Gross, who publishes the newsletter FranchiseRe, told industry press that re-releases rarely earn more than ten million dollars — which makes the Encore opening more than eight times the usual ceiling. It is the second-biggest global re-release debut on record, and the first re-release to top the North American box office since the 3D edition of The Lion King in 2011. Its domestic opening ranks third all-time among reissues, behind only the 1997 Star Wars special edition and that same Lion King 3D run.

The international breakdown shows where the demand came from. China led the overseas charge with about thirteen and a half million dollars, followed by the United Kingdom at about five and a half million and Mexico at just over four million, according to box-office reporting — with the Encore cut opening at number one in each of those markets. Premium formats pulled their weight too: IMAX screens contributed close to fourteen million dollars of the global total, split between North American and international auditoriums. For a film that has been streaming on Disney+ since 2019, every one of those admissions was a deliberate trip to the cinema.

The reissue has pushed Endgame's lifetime worldwide total to about two point eight eight five billion dollars, according to box-office reporting, leaving it roughly forty million dollars behind Avatar's two point nine two four billion-dollar record. The two blockbusters have traded the crown before: Endgame passed Avatar in July 2019, and Avatar took it back in March 2021 with a China re-release that the Russo brothers publicly congratulated on social media. Now both totals reflect strategic re-releases rather than first runs.

Why this is really about December

Analysts say the timing of the Encore cut is the whole point. Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters on December 18, and the reissue doubles as a theatrical marketing campaign for it — new end-credits scenes teasing the next film, plus a debut for Disney and Marvel's "Infinity Vision" premium-format certification. Gross described the strategy, in remarks quoted by industry outlets, as an effective way to build early word-of-mouth for what Marvel has coming next.

The counterpoint: a record built on marketing

Critics note that the all-time crown is now being contested through strategic re-releases rather than organic theatrical runs — Endgame Encore's push follows Avatar's own China re-release playbook — so the "record" is as much a marketing achievement as a box-office one, according to CineCorner's box-office report. As one industry commentator framed it, the re-release functions as "a giant marketing tease" for the December film. Still, Marvel has plenty to be pleased about: the studio's thirty-eight films have hauled in about thirty-five billion dollars worldwide, and demand for Doomsday is looking enormous.

Gen Z is a big part of that demand. Industry reporting has noted that young moviegoers made up a huge share of ticket buyers for this year's breakout releases, and they powered the Encore opening too — millions who watched the original as kids showed up anyway, cheering Captain America's "Avengers, assemble" moment in packed houses from Mumbai to Mexico City, according to fan reports. A film that has been available on streaming for years beating every new release in theaters says something about the draw of the shared big-screen experience.

Whether or not the record falls this weekend, the Endgame Encore run has already done its real job: it put Marvel's biggest event back on the biggest screens three months before Doomsday arrives. The crown may trade hands again — but the message to Hollywood is that a seven-year-old movie, free on streaming, can still beat everything new at the multiplex. See more on our Movies topic page, or catch up on the other encore making headlines in Taylor Swift's Showgirl encore.