The plot to get “Avengers: Endgame” past “Avatar” on the all time box office list has gone south. It’s evaporated like the people in Theranos’s blip.
Marvel-Disney added a minute of extra footage to “Endgame” this weekend, plus a Stan Lee tribute, hoping to lure fans back into theaters. “Endgame” is around $40 million behind “Avatar” on the adjusted-for-inflation all time box office list.
But fans smelled a rat. The minute, according to a fan website, is not newsworthy. Plus. there were no additional scenes added to the credits. Indeed, there was no reason to go back and see “Endgame” a fifth or sixth time. All this stuff can be caught on the DVD.
“Endgame” made only $1.8 million last night. If the weekend take is only $5 million, Marvel would have to keep this up for the rest of the summer. But there will be diminishing returns. The $40 million may not be worth it.
As it is, “Endgame” is still $100 million behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” on the real all time list. So why bother? They’re both owned by the same company: Disney.
Plus, by next week Marvel fans will have moved over to “Spider Man: Far from Home” to get the next chapter in the ongoing saga of super heroes including what happened after Tony Stark’s funeral. It’s sort of amazing how Kevin Feige and the Marvel time have woven together all this stuff, even if it makes no sense in the history of comic books. In my day (which is long ago, in another galaxy) comic book super heroes rarely crossed over into other stories. Now they all know each other. It’s like “As the Marvel World Turns.” Good for Feige. (Maybe he got the idea from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”.)
