Thanks to the "Avengers: Endgame Encore" re-release, the 2019 Marvel film has reclaimed the all-time box office record from "Avatar," $2.9255 billion to $2.9237 billion, per Deadline.
Do the math before you cheer. The Encore, a short re-release, opened at No. 1 with $26.1 million, then fell 81 percent to $4.4 million its second weekend. The "highest grossing movie ever" was restored by a two-week run that is now bleeding out like a mall theater. The record cost less than the press release it generated.
The mechanism: all-time No. 1 is no longer a record, it is a line item. Disney put a ten-year-old movie back in theaters across 52 territories so that in December, when Avengers: Doomsday opens across from Dune: Part Three in yet another Barbenheimer-style war, the opening ad can say "from the highest grossing movie ever." The movie did not win the crown. The crown is on lease.
The fun part: Avatar did the exact same trick in 2009, stealing the crown with a 3D re-release. So the race for biggest movie of all time is now a closed loop of two re-releases. No new films, just bookkeeping. The box office is an abacus and Disney just hit the equals key.
YOUR TURN: If a record has to be bought to keep it, is it still a record?
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