Since its release on the 24th of April 2019, Avengers: Endgame has smashed every single box office record — First movie in history to gross more than $US 1 billion in a single weekend; Fastest movie in history to cross the $US 2 billion mark (12 days) — except one. At $US 2.751 billion Endgame is still a good $US 37 million away from reaching James Cameron’s Avatar at the global box office, which has been sitting comfortably at the top spot for about a decade now.
A week ago, fans who were rooting hard for the 22nd Marvel Cinematic Universe film to topple Avatar were ready to throw in the white flag. If this was a 20-kilometre marathon, Endgame is in its final 200-metre sprint to the finish and there’s no way in hell it was going to make another $US 10 million, let alone $US 37 million.
However, six days ago, news dropped that Avengers: Endgame was going to be re-released in cinemas from 29 June 2019 onwards. Per Marvel Studios, the re-release will include an intro note from co-director Anthony Russo, an unfinished deleted scene and a sneak peek from Spider-Man: Far From Home. In a Facebook post, GSC Cinemas mentioned that the total runtime of the film will be approximately 190 minutes, which is about eight minutes longer than the original version.
Tickets are now available to purchase on GSC’s official website. And if you’ve just checked and are wondering why the limited showtimes or locations, GSC mentioned the following:
“More locations are coming. Please do check back in a moment. Now all cinemas are approving the showtimes.”
As of this writing, MBO has also started to update their listings and sell advance tickets. However, the same can’t be said about TGV (you can probably expect TGV to start selling tickets within the next few hours too).
While Marvel Studios/Disney have not explicitly mentioned that they’re re-releasing Avengers: Endgame to beat Avatar at the box office, there is very little doubt in my mind that this is nothing but a box office stunt. I mean re-releases are not uncommon, but they’re usually done in conjunction with the film’s anniversary or a special occasion and not released a few month’s after the film originally hit the big screen. But before you yell “that’s cheating!” know that Avatar had a re-release back in the day too, though that was a little bit more understandable as most cinemas did not have 3D technology installed during Avatar‘s original run.
