That will finish at 2am. Good luck staying awake.

I just don't see what audience this is ADDING for a significantly higher total. Yeah, I could see a bigger OW I guess, but then the runtime may hinder that too. How much of the population went into Infinity War thinking "this is it! this is what we've been waiting for" only to now have to go to another one? To see the actual ending?

More like 2:30, AMC always has atleast 25 minutes of previews. I’ll have to rely on my training from those Lord of the Rings/King Kong midnight shows 15 years ago. I’m more upset about the 3D.

It seems like there is going to be a huge rush out factor for this. People are really trying to avoid spoilers this time around, so that might be the best explanation for these insane presales. Still that makes me wonder how much walk up business there will be, because with everything being mostly sold out by time OD comes there can't possibly be that many tickets left unless people opt for those super late showings, and I don't see many doing that, especially with this being 3 hours long. I'm very curious to see how those repeat viewings are going to go as well.

Honestly, at this point I would be surprised if Endgame DOESN'T dismantle the record. I still think 300 is going to happen, but just barely.

DHII was the highest grossing Harry Potter film domestically by 60m+ and global by 300m+. So the audience can stil grow for finales. Or rather, more up front demand AND more rewatches due to the audience’s emotional connection to the characters and the end of their journey. Obviously Endgame won’t conclude everyone’s stories, but enough characters I expect will see finality that resonates with audiences.

Also, you make it seem like people view these movies as a chore rather than a delight. Find me someone who isn’t going to see Endgame because they were expecting Infinity War to wrap everything up.

When a large chunk of the audience has to pay upwards of $30+/family to see a film, after 21 films, it might be a bit of a chore.

Also, DH2 increased because it was the LAST ONE. For sure. 100%. Again, Infinity War was marketed as the LAST ONE. It appears that same marketing is going to work again though.

DH2 also increased because of 3D.

The snap is the biggest movie moment of the modern era though. And it’s been Heavily implied that the original 6 will be done after this. That’s how it gets to $275M. I don’t believe $300M is possible unless it gets like $75M on Thursday night. Seems farfetched.

I think my best case scenario is $285 mil OW. Which would put best case scenario for the total at $769.5 mil.

But I don't think a 2.7 multiplier is feasible. Especially with Pikachu staring it in the face. Then John Wick 3, Aladdin, and Godzilla.

as others have said 3 hour run time is going to prevent this from happening

I want to see it but 3 hours is a long time to be sitting there, even with recliners and a bladder buster soda.

Infinity War wasn’t marketed as the end of anything. It was marketed as the culmination of everything to that point. Which it was. There was no “It All Ends” or “The Last Chapter” or any of those explicit marketing points.

No one is forcing families to drop $30 on tickets. They go because they want to. Cinema viewing isn’t required by law. And if they enjoyed 21 films, I’m not sure why the 22nd would become a chore.

Agree.

Great post. Welcome!

The number of people that loved Infinity War and just have to see how it all ends up in Endgame is huge. 22 films in and this will be the peak.

The only thing preventing a $300m+ OW is the long running time. Shouldnt impact the legs as much so $270-$280m OW and $750m+ is certainly in play.

So that’s what happened. I wasn’t even trying to get endgame tickets.

IW was not marketed as the final one, but there was a feeling among many that it was simply because it was finally when we get to see Thanos in action. Add in the click and its title, and it's easy to see why people think it was the final one.

If demand continues theaters will keep adding more shows. There’s no problem reducing the other movies to fewer or smaller screens. They can’t complete with the demand. With online and presales growing this is different than the era with TPM, Spider-man or POTC: DMC. Fewer people will have to wait. Besides the Sunday hold will be great.

It should be more frontloaded than IW. That movie actually had really good staying power and increased a lot from Ultron. No doubt the demand will increase OW.

Let's do some quick math. From what I can see going through some archives, theaters scheduled Infinity War showings on a screen at intervals of around 3:35. From what I have seen so far for Endgame, the scheduling intervals are 4:00. That's a difference of 25m a screening, which makes sense with the 30 minute longer runtime of Endgame.

For the sake of simple math, I'll use the difference of 30 minutes. So for every 8 Infinity War showings, you get 7 Endgame showings. Or something like that. Of course you can't have that many screenings in a day. Let's say you had IW showings at 10am, 1:30pm, 4pm, 7:30pm, and 11pm. Your Endgame showings would be 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm. So in a single day on a single screen Endgame will have 80% revenue potential. If you had a theater that was showing Infinity War on 4 screens, you would need 5 screens for Endgame to match the revenue potential. Let me know if this is off, I'm not a mathematician.

The mega-multiplexes won't have any issues compensating for the run time with more theaters. It gets trickier with your family-owned 4-8 screen theaters, but overall I think there's enough screens to go around to at least match IW's OW.

I don't think the long run time will affect audiences on OW, but I do think it will impact legs. I don't think 300m OW is realistic at this point though. I'm seeing 280m after a 125m OD.

Looks like no one wants to bet their money on $300m OW

Return of the Jedi's opening adjusts to about 297 million. TFA came within10 million of it a few years back so it's not out of the realm. It's not quite ROTJ of TFA, so I think 275-290 is a safe bet though. Definitely the closest Non SW film ever. The record usually gets about a 20% bump, but just a year later seems unlikely.

I’d like it’s chances if not for the runtime. I don’t want to say it’s impossible but big openings have been limited by capacity before. 280m shouldn’t be too difficult though.

Btw the rate of opening weekend increases has slowed. It’s been 7 years since avengers. The record used to double in that time.

It's been a consistent jump. One film barely passes, then a 25% increase in about 3-5 years. That's why I say Endgame is more likely for a 7-15%. It's in an awkward spot where audiences know it's not the last in the series, but this is basically the definitive end of what Marvel started.

I just hope the quality doesn't drop like Potter or SW to basically secondary Marvel.

Graph it or do a regression. It's not been consistent. It's beginning to level off.

Yeah I graphed it. R squared for the exponential curve is 0.971 (that's how well the line matches the data points). It was growing faster than the exponential rate before Spider-Man, but since then it's fallen behind the curve.

Remember that the OW record took four plus to increase only $20m between Spider-Man and Dead Man's Chest.

It still hasn't doubled Dead Man's Chest OW. For it to double Spider-Man it took 14 years (until The Force Awakens).