‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’ Is off to a Record-Breaking Start Beating a Decade-Old Box Office Record

Marvel’s theatrical return of ‘Avengers: Endgame‘ has moved fast since tickets first went on sale, quickly turning what many assumed would be a modest nostalgia play into one of the more closely watched box office stories of the year. Between the film’s new Doomsday-bridging footage, a refreshed color grade, and the debut of Disney’s Infinity Vision format, ‘Avengers: Endgame: Encore’ has clearly been positioned as something bigger than a typical re-release.

That positioning paid off almost immediately. According to Global Box Office, ‘Endgame Encore’ reached the biggest first-day presales this century for a theatrical re-release within just a few hours of tickets going on sale, officially surpassing the mark previously held by 2012’s ‘Titanic 3D.’

Impressive as that milestone is, it still falls short of the biggest re-release opener in box office history. That record belongs to 1997’s ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ Special Edition re-release, which brought in $138.3 million domestically during its theatrical run, according to Box Office Mojo, remaining the highest-grossing re-release ever, unadjusted for inflation, nearly three decades later.

That 1997 number carries extra weight given how it was achieved. According to SlashFilm’s retrospective on the “Special Editions” re-releases, ‘A New Hope’ opened to a $35 million weekend that January, an extraordinary result for a film already twenty years old at the time, going on to earn $138.2 million domestically across its extended theatrical run. The re-release also helped pave the way for similarly successful reissues of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’ that same spring, with the full trilogy of re-releases combining for $472 million worldwide.

That kind of extended theatrical run, stretching across months rather than a single weekend, is part of what makes the 1997 record so difficult to match today. Modern re-releases, including Encore, typically operate on much shorter theatrical windows before moving to streaming or home release, making a comparable months-long box office run considerably less likely regardless of how strong the opening presale numbers look.

Even without threatening the all-time record, Encore’s presale performance carries real significance for Marvel’s broader strategy heading into December’s ‘Avengers: Doomsday.’ The re-release has been deliberately used to introduce audiences to Infinity Vision months ahead of when ‘Doomsday’ will actually need the format, since IMAX screens will be committed to Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune: Part Three’ during Doomsday’s own opening weekend.

Strong early ticket sales for Encore suggest that strategy is already working as intended, giving Disney a proven audience willingness to seek out certified premium screenings before the format faces its true test in December. That kind of momentum matters more for setting up ‘Doomsday’s’ box office ceiling than it does for chasing a three-decade-old Star Wars milestone.

With ‘Avengers: Endgame: Encore’ opening in IMAX and Infinity Vision theaters on September 25, its final box office total will ultimately depend on how long theaters keep the film in rotation and how much repeat viewership it draws beyond opening weekend. Whether or not it ever threatens ‘A New Hope’s’ 1997 record, Encore has already proven there’s still a substantial audience willing to show up for a movie many of them have already seen multiple times.

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