Avengers: Endgame Almost Certain to Pass Avatar, as Gap Narrows to Less Than $7 Million

“Whatever it takes,” indeed. Marvel fans can start to rejoice (just in time for San Diego Comic-Con this week), as it’s now looking like Avengers: Endgame will make it down the final stretch to beating out Avatar for the title of highest-grossing movie of all time, worldwide.

As of writing this, Avengers: Endgame has earned $2.781 billion at the worldwide box office – less than $7 million shy of Avatar‘s $2.788 billion gross. For some onlookers, that $7 million may still seem like a wide gap this late in the game – but it’s also a divide that Marvel Studios can easily surmount.

If you look back a month this time, Avengers: Endgame was still over $40 million away from catching Avatar. By the time the July 4th holiday came and went, Endgame has jumped significantly (thanks in part to its hyped “re-release” in theaters), cutting that gap in half. Just this past weekend Avengers added another $2 million to its total, leaving just $8 million between it and Avatar; after Monday’s screenings, we’re now under the $7 million mark

Avengers: Endgame has been holding fairly steady in July, earning a median average of around 700K a day for the first week of the month, and around 500K a day over the second week. At that rate of drop off, there’s still plenty of steam left in the engine to see Endgame pass Avatar in the late-August / early September time frame – especially if Marvel Studios has any other promotional plans to get fans back into theaters for the final push.

The real big “If” in all this is the imminent home release of Avengers: Endgame. The film hits digital on July 30th, and Blu-ray on August 13th; given the lengthy runtime of Avengers: Endgame, and the mountain of competition at the box office (including another Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, Spider-Man: Far From Home), the theatrical version may quickly look less attractive than the home version of the film.

On the other hand, getting Avengers: Endgame to the top of the mountain has become a sacred mission for die-hard Marvel fans, and seeing the shrinking gap between their movie and Avatar has certainly kept them incentivevized to keep returning to the theater more than they normally ever would have. As stated, San Diego Comic-Con is now about to unfold, and Marvel Studios could easily use the event as a rallying cry for Avengers: Endgame. We’ll soon see.

Spider-Man: Far From Home and Avengers: Endgame are now in theaters, with Endgame hitting digital on July 30th and Blu-ray on August 13th. Captain Marvel is now available digitally and on home media.