Much has been made in the media about the impending re-release of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame. People say it’s a blatant money grab, and a transparent attempt to unseat 2009’s Avatar as the movie with the top worldwide box office gross. Those people are absolutely right on both counts, but the people decrying Endgame‘s re-release as unfair are absolutely wrong.
Why? Because Avatar had a re-release, too! In the summer of 2010, Avatar: Special Edition was released, adding back some deleted scenes and extending a few existing ones (mostly with CGI, not surprisingly). It took in about $33.2 million worldwide, a total that is included in the worldwide gross of the original movie.
Time for the math: Avatar‘s total worldwide gross was $2,787,965,087. Removing its re-release’s take from that total leaves $2,754,754,243. Subtracting Endgame‘s gross thus far from that leaves $5,150,277: only five million dollars, which sounds like a lot, but it’s not even worth pocket change compared to the totals. That’s less than one-fifth of 1% (0.00187, to be exact) of Endgame‘s gross.
So, not only is Endgame way closer to Avatar than it looks if you just look at the totals, but it’s also obviously completely fair that it’s getting its own re-release. Can we stop all the whining now? Please?
(Of course, this isn’t adjusted for inflation…)
