Disney is using a seven-year-old blockbuster to do two jobs at once: generate weekend box office and market a December event film. Avengers Endgame: Encore, the rerelease of Marvel Studios’ 2019 global hit, collected $3.8 million in Thursday previews across 3,060 North American screens. Disney projects the return will reach about $25 million domestically, with another $25 million to $30 million from overseas.
Those are not Endgame-size figures. The original opened to a record $1.2 billion worldwide in April 2019 and ended at $2.7 billion, second on the all-time chart. But the rerelease math is different: the negative is already paid for, and every ticket effectively funds the next campaign.
Why the Encore run matters
The cut includes an exclusive look at Avengers: Doomsday, due Dec. 18 from directors Anthony and Joe Russo. It also arrives with the launch of Infinity Vision, the new premium large-format certification. For marketers, this is a trailer launch converted into a ticketed media moment: the audience pays to see the preview, while Disney fills high-priced seats and seeds awareness for Doomsday.
At a projected $25 million domestic weekend across 3,060 locations, Encore would average a modest sum per screen. The point is not raw volume; it is premium-format utilisation and advance buzz for the next Russo title.
The newcomers fighting for screens
This is not a one-title weekend. Three new wide releases are chasing different corners of the audience.
- Primetime: $2.7M Thursday previews in 2,800-plus theaters; tracking at $12M–$16M domestic.
- Heart of the Beast: $2M previews in 3,400 theaters; projected at $17M–$20M domestic.
- Forgotten Island: $1.8M previews, including paid advance screenings; mid-teens projection.
- Resident Evil: holding $60.1M from last weekend’s franchise-record opening.
Robert Pattinson leads Primetime as journalist Chris Hanson for A24. The film carries an 86 Rotten Tomatoes score and THR chief film critic David Rooney called it “peak Sleaze TV rerun, for whoever wants it.” Brad Pitt’s Heart of the Beast, directed by David Ayer for Paramount, holds an 87 percent critics’ score and an $82 million budget under the previous Paramount regime. DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, released by Universal in 3,548 locations, has the widest footprint and a 96 percent score on an $80 million budget.
What to watch in the data
Three live-action titles are chasing adult and genre audiences, while Forgotten Island relies on family matinees and weekend walk-ups. For screen professionals, the real test is hold strength after Thursday previews. If Encore performs in line with projections, it proves that a half-day of previews can seed a premium-format push and a marketing beat for a December tentpole.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
