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?”.)

The smartest person in the movie business right now besides horror master producer Jason Blum is probably Oscar winner Octavia Spencer. She got her Oscar for “The Help,” a sensitive film about race set in the early 60s South, and never looked back.

Now Spencer and Blum are connected through their movie, “Ma,” a $5 million Blumhouse special directed by “The Help” director Tate Taylor and starring Spencer. Yes, the same Octavia Spencer from other sensitive movies like “Fruitvale Station” and “Hidden Figures.”

“Ma,” which I know, dear reader, you haven’t seen, has made $45 million at the US box office and another $13 million internationally. That’s $58 million on a $5 million budget. And it’s not over. “Ma” is still out there making money. Then it will be a big hit on DVD, streaming, and so on.

Blum has made a fortune with smart horror films like “Ma,” all of which cost $5 million apiece. Plus he produced Jordan Peele’s breakout hit, “Get Out,” which combined horror with social satire to make a potent mix.

Spencer not only stars as “Ma,” she’s an executive producer. She was also an executive producer on this year’s Oscar winner, “Green Book.” Next year she stars in Robert Zemeckis’s “The Witches,” produced by the dynamic duo of Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro.

Clearly, she and her team know what they’re doing. What a great story. Before “The Help” came out in 2011, Spencer had spent about 15 years working doggedly, mostly in television, in small roles. This is quite an achievement! And PS, Octavia Spencer couldn’t be nicer.

Here’s the deal on “Maiden,” an extraordinary documentary that sets sail for the Oscars beginning tomorrow in limited release and will go wide over the summer. Tracy Edwards is sort of the new Philomena, a real life heroine who organized the first ever all female crew to compete in Britain’s Whitbread round the world race back in 1989-90.

Once you’ve seen her on screen now, and from the miraculous film that survived from her unique triumph, Tracy is going to be a star. So will her crew, including her pal Jo Gooding, who filmed the whole adventure nearly 30 years ago without any training. Filmmakers at a screening and reception this week for “Maiden” were completely impressed with Jo’s work back then. This tiny woman was completely bowled over by the compliments.

“I just took the camera and shot everything,” she said humbly. “I couldn’t imagine it would become a feature film.”

Director Alex Holmes retrieved all the footage that had been discarded, plus conducted new interviews. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t. And Holmes’s real achievement is in the story telling. The film is dramatic and exciting, and begging for a major motion picture version.

“Maiden” has a surprise hero at its center, too: King Hussein of Jordan. You’ll have to watch the film to learn how he and Tracy hit it off, and Royal Jordanian Airlines came to sponsor the Maiden trip. Three decades later, King Hussein’s daughter, Princess Haya, helped Edwards buy back the original Maiden, clean it up, and send it on a worldwide tour supporting education for young women. Queen Noor (who is not Haya’s mother) sent a message of congrats that was read at our screening.

Who would Tracy like to see play her? Most of the night, the guests–including Oscar winners Barbara Kopple and Karen Goodman, “Veep” actress Margaret Colin, the great Carol Alt, and the evening’s host, Whoopi Goldberg— were taking stabs at names. When the women went on this death-dying trip around the world in a sailboat they were between 27 and 30. Now they’re between 57 and 60. Studios are going to want to tell you the young women’s stories.

Every known actress on the imdb will want to be involved. But if Brie Larson and Saoirse Ronan are up for getting wet, this movie is for them. Danielle McDonald, too.

The word is that “big” Sony- aka Tom Rothman’s Sony– will make the translation since Michael Barker and Tom Bernard‘s Sony Pictures Classics is releasing “Maiden” now.

See this movie! I’m telling you now, “Maiden” will be that Oscar movie you can tell friends you saw this summer.