Avengers, save us (the box office)! “Avengers: Doomsday” has generated $16.5 million in advance ticket sales since its opening day.
Disney’s Marvel Studios has released tickets to coincide with the release of the first official trailer, which previews the epic battle between the Avengers and the X-Men against the villainous Doctor Doom. These pre-sales are impressive, as tickets for the premium format were only on sale at just 1,000 theaters in the country. The adventures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will hit more than 4,000 screens in North America when Avengers: Doomsday opens on the weekend of December 18th. Studio officials say premium format showtimes on Thursday, Dec. 17 and Friday, Dec. 18 are already nearly sold out, and exhibitors are reportedly adding more showings for Christmas Day and beyond.
It’s also worth noting that opening day sales don’t include Imax, the most popular of the premium large formats. “Avengers: Doomsday” does not have access to Imax. That’s because Dune: Part III, which opens on the same day, will exclusively occupy the entire Imax footprint for three weeks only. (That’s because director Denis Villeneuve shot his third film, Dune, with the company’s cameras.) Premium large formats are all the rage, especially for action-heavy adventures, so Marvel introduced something called “Infinity Vision.” Disney says this is not new technology, but rather a “certification” that ensures theaters “meet rigorous technical standards.”
“Doomsday” is predicted to be one of the biggest (if not the biggest) debuts of the year. While advance ticket sales don’t necessarily translate into weekend opening numbers, advance sales for “Doomsday” are double the opening day sales for Marvel’s previous superhero mashup, 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and that includes all formats and screens on sale. “Deadpool & Wolverine” opened with $211 million and closed with $1.3 billion, making it the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.
It is unclear how popular their debut song “Doomsday” will be during the holiday season. The last time the entire MCU came together was 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which resulted in the biggest opening weekend in history with $357 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide. It is currently the second highest-grossing film of all time at $2.7 billion. Since then, Marvel’s track record has been checkered, to say the least. But the comic book empire’s biggest post-pandemic hits have been big Avengers-style reboots like 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion) and Deadpool & Wolverine. Marvel is about to release another big movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, on July 31st.
“Dunesday” is a coined term that combines the same-day releases of “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Dune 3,” which will collectively mark the biggest weekend in box office history. The previous three big weekends coincided with the release of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($402 million), 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War ($314 million), and 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($313 million).
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Doomsday is the 39th film in the vast Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film features a kitchen sink cast of Avengers and X-Men including, but not limited to, Robert Downey Jr. (returning as Doctor Doom instead of Iron Man), Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Patrick Stewart, Pedro Pascal, Ian McKellen, Letitia Wright, and Channing Tatum. Plot details have not been confirmed, but the logline teases that “lovable heroes from three different universes will be put on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve encountered before.” The sequel, “Avengers: Secret Wars,” is scheduled to be released in 2027.
