Avengers: Endgame Reportedly Made Disney a $900 Million Profit

You know the story — Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing movie to ever hit theaters. While gross figures are oftentimes an too easy of an indicator for box office success, there are times movies that gross less end up making more than the competition thanks to production budgets and the like; welcome to Business 101. Each spring, the box office fiends at Deadline put together an in-depth look at the box office from the past year. Friday afternoon, the trade unveiled the winner of this year’s contest; by no surprise, Avengers: Endgame was the most profitable movie of the year. In fact, the site says Endgame ended up nearly netting Disney a whopping $900 million profit.

By the time the studio started seeing money, the box office had already taken about $1 billion of the earnings, giving Disney around $1.789B to pay the bills. After a reported production budget of $356M and a comparable marketing budget to boot, the House of Mouse ended up netting $890M — or, if we do really crude math, enough to cover the production budgets of two or three more movies from Marvel Studios.

After Joker ended up setting all sorts of records at the box office last year, it was widely thought the Joaquin Phoenix-starring thriller was the most profitable comic book movie to ever hit theaters. Should the case of Deadline’s hypothetical budgets prove accurate, it’s thought Endgame nearly double the profit of Warner Brothers’ micro-budget film.

Once Endgame crossed the $1B benchmark its opening weekend, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn penned a heartfelt letter to the fans who showed up at the box office.

“Kevin Feige and the Marvel Studios team have continued to challenge notions of what is possible at the movie theatre both in terms of storytelling and at the box office,” Horn wrote. “Though Endgame is far from an end for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these first 22 films constitute a sprawling achievement, and this weekend’s monumental success is a testament to the world they’ve envisioned, the talent involved, and their collective passion, matched by the irrepressible enthusiasm of fans around the world.”

Avengers: Endgame is now streaming on Disney+.

What comics storyline do you think could end up making Marvel more money than Endgame? Think it over and let us know your thoughts in the comments section!