Entertainment has never been bigger than it is today. Sure, Hollywood analysts and executives get spooked at the end of every summer when they realize they hadn’t earned enough money at the box office, and every few years, console manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony question whether or not physical game sales have killed the need for disc drives for the next generation. But in spite of all that, entertainment is still here. It’s never been more ubiquitous and accessible with so many devices and streaming and subscription services.
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What’s interesting is that new records are still being set all the time and new products continue to push the boundaries forward. Just a week ago, Warner Bros. became the first studio to release seven movies in a row that were number one at the box office over their opening weekend, and earn more than $40 million domestically. At the same time, Hollow Knight: Silksong became one of the biggest indie game launches in history, selling millions of copies in a matter of days.
It’s an amazing time to be alive and see these new records being set — but the thing is, there’s one record that hasn’t been touched. In fact, over the past 12 years, only one thing has even come close to topping it.
Grand Theft Auto V Set the Record for Biggest Entertainment Launch of All Time
Just the fact that it’s been 12 years might be a shock to people considering we’re all still waiting on the sequel: Grand Theft Auto V released on September 17, 2013, and quickly — very quickly — became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, beating out every game and every movie that’s ever released before and after. It set the record by passing $1 billion in revenue, or approximately 16.6 million copies in sales, in its first three days of release.
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, it made around $800 million in just its first day — that itself is an incredible number that every studio and developer in the world would be ecstatic to hit for the lifetime of one product, let alone in a single day. Since then, GTA V has gone on to become the second best-selling video game of all time with 215 million copies sold (thanks to its many re-releases across three console generations, plus PC), trailing only Minecraft, which has sold a whopping 350 million copies over the course of 14 years.
Avengers: Endgame Came Close to Beating GTA V’s Record
Of course, the only thing that could come close to beating a record like GTA V‘s is the biggest crossover movie in history, one that was the culmination of over two dozen films that released over a decade. Six years ago — yes, it’s been six years — Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame came out in theaters and became the fastest movie to make $1 billion at the worldwide box office. But it did so in five days; GTA V did it in three. The previous record holder was the prior year’s Avengers: Infinity War, which took an additional six days (11 in total) to cross the billion-dollar threshold.
If we were going by sales — in this case, tickets vs copies sold — Avengers: Endgame undoubtedly was watched by more people in its first three days (its opening weekend) than GTA V was purchased. That’s because we’re comparing approximately $15-$25 per ticket to $60 per video game copy. There’s, unfortunately, no precise way to measure this, but even then, GTA V still holds the revenue record for hitting that coveted billion-dollar mark. It’s amazing that it took something as big as Endgame to even come close, but it still didn’t do it — and that was before the pandemic, when things were chugging along and blockbusters were getting bigger each and every year.
Will GTA 6 Beat the Record (Or Will Another 2026 Release)?
Thanos once said he’d ‘do it himself,’ but he ultimately failed to accomplish this feat with Endgame. It seems the only thing that can come close to beating GTA V‘s record is Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6, which is due out in May 2026. It’s unquestionably the most anticipated video game release of all time — even the studio is calling GTA 6 the “biggest launch in gaming history” — so if there was ever a game that could top GTA V, it would be its sequel. It makes sense, too. Hype is bigger for this game than its predecessor, video game prices are higher now ($70 is the norm, but GTA 6 easily could be $80 at launch), and there are, frankly, more people on the planet who can purchase the game.
I have no doubt in my mind that GTA 6 will cross $1 billion within days — it just needs to be less than three days in order for it to beat GTA V. If it ties, that’s also an amazing accomplishment. But if GTA 6 takes four days and misses the target, there’s perhaps another thing releasing next year that might have a chance: Avengers: Doomsday. The first Avengers movie to release since Endgame, there’s a lot of hype surrounding the return of multiple Avengers, the inclusion of new superheroes, and the return of Robert Downey Jr. (but this time as the villain, Doctor Doom). It releases in December 2026 so we won’t know if it stands a chance for a while. Still, it’s interesting to see Avengers go up against GTA in the same year, and possibly stand a chance at the record.
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