Avatar Passes Avengers: Endgame In Worldwide Box Office Thanks To Chinese Re-Release

Deadline reports that the 2009 film Avatar is once again the highest-grossing film ever in the worldwide box office. The James Cameron sci-fi epic passed Avengers: Endgame to reclaim the crown after a re-release in China. The film brought in an additional RMB 80M ($12.3 million) through 5 PM local time in the country after a release on Friday. This allowed the film to overcome the $7.82 million gap that separated the films after Endgame. Avatar now has $2.802 billion worldwide compared to Endgame‘s $2.797 billion. Avatar has had several re-releases since it debuted while Endgame made all of its money in one run in 2019.

Avatar was originally released in China in early 2010 and earned nearly $203 million at the time, and this was before the Chinese market expanded. It’s expected the number will grow over the next few days, as it leads pre-sales through Tuesday in the country. Maoyan, where the film has a 9.2 score (up from the 9.1 it had previously) is projecting that the re-release will finish with an additional RMB 378.2M ($58 million). Avatar also benefits from the lack of competition right now until Godzilla vs. Kong on March 26. It is the first non-Chinese film to lead the box office in the country this year, pushing the Chinese film Hi Mom to second place.

Cameron said in an interview with China.org: “We’ve got climate change, we’ve got deforestation, our relationship with nature is more at risk than it’s ever been, and Avatar is about those things, but it also is a timeless film. Some people criticize the stories for being too simple. It wasn’t that simple — it was universal. It was something that everybody everywhere could understand and emotionally related to.”

It should be noted that Avatar, formerly owned by 20th Century Fox, is now also under the Disney umbrella after it acquired FOX a few years ago.

Producer Jon Landau said: “We are proud to reach this great milestone, but Jim and I are most thrilled that the film is back in theaters during these unprecedented times, and we want to thank our Chinese fans for their support. We are hard at work on the next Avatar films and look forward to sharing the continuation of this epic story for years to come.“