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Box office: Endgame tops third weekend with $63M; Detective Pikachu catches No. 2 with $58M
Avengers: Endgame shows no signs of weariness during its third weekend in theaters. Well...sort of.
The stunning conclusion to Marvel Studios' 10-year Infinity Saga snagged the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office once again with an added $63.1 million. Some outlets (like Variety) place this weekend's domestic figure higher at $65 million.
While that's a 57% decline from last weekend when it took in $147.7 million, Endgame still managed to secure the fourth-biggest third domestic weekend of all time behind The Force Awakens ($90 million), Avatar ($68 million), and Black Panther ($66 million).
Despite the fact that Avengers: Infinity War only dropped 45% in its third week last spring/summer, Endgame did surpass the $700 million milestone this weekend for a domestic total of $723.5 million. Securing that number in just 17 days, the film is currently the third-highest grossing feature in terms of North American records, beating out the likes of Black Panther ($700 million) and Infinity War ($679 million).
Having broken $2.2 billion globally last weekend, Endgame overtook Titanic as the second-highest grossing movie of all time. Even James Cameron took a moment out of his busy schedule to congratulate the movie on such a feat. That being said, if Endgame continues to decline at the box office, it may not defeat the first Avatar ($2.78 billion) as the highest-grossing movie ever. In any case, its global tally now stands at $2.48 billion.
Warner Bros. and Legendary's Detective Pikachu, the first-ever live-action Pokémon movie, was able to "catch" (get it?) second place at the domestic box office with a cool $58 million from over 4,000 theaters. It's the second-biggest video game adaptation opening after 2001's Tomb Raider ($47 million). The third-biggest video game movie launch goes to Pokémon: The First Movie, which, adjusted for inflation, made $55 million during its first North American weekend back in 1999.
“I’m giddy,” Warner Bros.’ head of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein, told Variety this morning. “This is a big weekend for Detective Pikachu. It worked because of the lighthearted nature of the film. You don’t need to be a Pokémon fan to see the movie.”
Based on the hit video games and television shows, Detective Pikachu is a fantasy/science fiction neo-noir directed by Rob Letterman (Goosebumps) that finds a once-hopeful Pokémon Trainer (Justice Smith) teaming up with a talking Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) to solve a murder mystery. With the story taking place in our flesh and blood reality, all of the Pokémon seen in the film were brought to life via CGI. SYFY WIRE actually fan casted all 151 original Pocket Monsters; that list can be found here.
Overseas, Pikachu bested gym leaders from 62 foreign territories for $103 million; China nabbed the biggest foreign opening with $40 million with England coming in second with $6.6 million. The movie's international total for its debut weekend stands at $161 million (that includes North American sales).
Genre holdovers include: Ugly Dolls, dropping 57% in its second weekend with a meager $4 million—its domestic total is just over $14 million; Captain Marvel with $1.813 million; The Curse of La Llorona with $1.686 million; Shazam! with $1.1 million; and Dumbo with $568,000.
