The Friday chart looks like a scheduling trick: a 2019 Marvel title beat three new wide releases. Avengers: Endgame Encore led with $11.2 million from 3,060 North American screens and is pacing toward a $26 million weekend, according to Variety.
The re-release is not a straightforward box-office play. It arrives ahead of Avengers: Doomsday, due December 18. That timing turns a seven-year-old film into a theatre-sized trailer: it re-engages fans, resets the franchise in the cultural conversation, and gives exhibitors a known title in a crowded frame. In its original run, Endgame reached $2.799 billion worldwide, second only to Avatar‘s $2.9 billion.
The Friday leaderboard
A24’s Primetime landed second with $8.49 million from 2,874 locations, on pace for a $20.5 million weekend. The Robert Pattinson drama about Chris Hansen and To Catch a Predator has drawn strong reviews, though Hansen himself called the film “so bizarre and so in-and-out of reality” and “detached from reality.”
Paramount’s The Heart of the Beast took third with an estimated $7.45 million from 3,435 sites, heading toward a $20 million domestic opening. David Ayer’s survival adventure stars Brad Pitt as a veteran trekking across Alaska after a crash.
Resident Evil slipped to fourth in its second frame: $6.9 million Friday, with a projected $23.5 million weekend. That follows a franchise-best $61 million debut. Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island opened to $4.38 million from 3,548 screens, trending to $11.5 million.
What the split means
This is a crowded marketplace. For media planners, the chart shows how library product and new titles now compete for the same screen count and the same weekend attention. A re-release with a known brand can out-open an original drama; the strategic value is in awareness long before the next ticket is sold.
Studios are using the theatrical window as an owned media channel. For a franchise launch, an encore gives an older title new screens, fresh press coverage, and a clear call to action: the next film’s release date. It is not just nostalgia; it is retargeting at scale.
- Endgame Encore: $11.2M Friday / ~$26M weekend, 3,060 screens
- Primetime: $8.49M Friday / ~$20.5M weekend, 2,874 locations
- The Heart of the Beast: $7.45M Friday / ~$20M weekend, 3,435 sites
- Resident Evil: $6.9M Friday / ~$23.5M second weekend, 3,684 locations
- Forgotten Island: $4.38M Friday / ~$11.5M weekend, 3,548 screens
What to watch
The weekend numbers will tell whether adult-skewing originals can hold beyond a fan-driven opening. Primetime has the reviews, but its subject is built for watercooler energy; The Heart of the Beast is a broader commercial play. The Endgame encore, meanwhile, is less about this weekend’s gross than about conditioning audiences for December’s Avengers: Doomsday.
Source: Variety
