Avengers: Endgame breaks box office records with massive $1.2 billion opening

Marvel Studios/Disney

Part ofThe Avengers: Endgame guide

Box office expectations for Avengers: Endgame were huge. But not this huge.

Disney this morning announced that Avengers: Endgame pulled $1.209 billion worldwide in its opening weekend, easily smashing the opening-day record of $640.5 million Avengers: Infinity War set just last year.

Box Office Mojo today also estimated the movie’s haul at $1.015 billion, meaning Avengers: Endgame is the first film in history to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales in its debut weekend, too.

By the same virtue, the superhero ensemble smashed records for foreign and worldwide debuts (thanks to a day-and-date premiere in China) and just three days in, is already placing crosshairs on all-time records and other prestige numbers.

Disney’s statement today claimed No. 1s for Avengers: Endgame in:

• Domestic gross: $350 million (overtaking 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War at $257.6 million).
• International gross: $859 million. (smashing 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, which earned $443.1 million in non-U.S. ticket sales).
• Domestic single-day gross: $156.7 million, on Friday.
• Domestic Saturday gross: $109 million (the first $100 million day without previews).
• Domestic Sunday gross: $84.3 million.
• Opening day, China: $107.8 million.
• Opening weekend, China: $330.5 million.
• Fastest movie to $1 billion (worldwide): Five days.
• Biggest IMAX global debut: $91.5 million.
• Eighth Marvel Studios movie to earn $1 billion. (This year’s Captain Marvel was the seventh.)

That fairly moots the $300 million (domestic) expectations that even seemed aggressive or hype-driven at the time experts offered them.

With the two largest movie markets (the U.S. and China) churning away together, Deadline reported yesterday that analysts expect Avengers: Endgame “will near cash breakeven” as of Sunday — meaning that in one weekend, Disney made back everything it spent to make and market the movie, and from here on out it’s a river of gravy.

That also means domestic and foreign all-time records are in range. Avengers: Infinity Wartook $678.8 million in the U.S. last year, good four fourth all time behind (in ascending order) Black Panther (also 2018) Avatar(2009), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Right now, Avengers: Endgame appears to be a lock to finish No. 2, and possibly dethrone Star Wars.

We’ve written a few things about Avengers: Endgame’s opening weekend for you to peruse. Among them, our guaranteed no-spoiler review, and a spoiler-free list of scenes you can skip if you need to go pee during the flick’s three-hour, one-minute running time. Or you dive into our full spoiler analysis. You have time — despite the gargantuan box-office total, this is only the first week of Avengers: Endgame summer-long theatrical run.