Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Endgame’ to break box office records due to its rich characters, story: Fox News’ Michael Tammero
The most anticipated film in the Marvel franchise's history, "Avengers: Endgame," hit theaters on Thursday night and 17 AMC theater locations are adding a record number of around the clock showings in order to keep up with the demand from Marvel fans.
Endgame is already breaking records with the super hero film racking up more advance ticket sales than any movie title in history. In China alone, Endgame broke opening day records with $107.2 million in ticket sales when it was released on Wednesday. In North America, Endgame reached a record opening of $60 million in Thursday night preview showings.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Avengers: Endgame” is expected to score a record domestic opening of more than $270 million, with some movie experts betting it could reach the $300 million mark.
Fox senior vice president and entertainment host Michael Tammero said the reason for Endgame’s success is due to the quality of Marvel movies overall.
“They are a lot smarter, the stories are a lot richer, and the characters are a lot more developed. A lot of that is to Kevin Feige who is president of Marvel over at Disney. He’s really sort of guided this whole franchise with a clear creative direction which is the big difference from Warner Brothers where their super hero movies have been all over the place,” he said on FOX Business’ “Making Money with Charles Payne” Thursday.
FOX Business’ Charles Payne says that Endgame’s ability to break so many records before its official domestic release is amazing because “up until this point, the box office this year has been abysmal.”
While Tammero says that the movie industry experienced one of its best years in a very longtime last year, he admits that the box office has suffered significantly in recent years.
“The box office is down 16 percent from last year, it’s the worst box office since 2011,” he said.
Payne says this year’s box office seems to be following a very similar pattern to what last year's box office went through up until Marvel’s Black Panther was released.
“It was down. People don’t go to the theaters anymore and all of a sudden that movie came out and it ignited the rest [of the box office],” Payne said.
Tammero said the success of Black Panther was driven by its originality, which he finds is the current challenge for the movie industry due to a lack of original films being produced.
“The movies haven’t been that great so far. There hasn’t been a lot of show me something new, tell me something I haven’t seen before. It’s all been sort of retreads,” he said.
Payne believes that it’s because Hollywood relies too heavily on prequels, sequels, and remakes. One remake he cites that falls into this trap is the new Star Wars franchise.
“I think they really started to go into that well too often. The last couple offerings weren’t that good, and it didn’t do that well in the box office.”
But Tammero said those type of movies are made because they are a big part of what sells.
According to Box Office Mojo, the three biggest opening weekends were all franchise films including Marvel's “Avengers: Infinity War,” which had an opening weekend of more than $640 million, “The Fate of the Furious” with an opening weekend of $541.9M, and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which had an opening weekend of $528.9 million.
“They want a guaranteed built-in audience and that’s what they have with these Marvel and DC universe movies and Star Wars.”
Another problem Tammero finds is that recent movies being produced have gotten too heavy.
“Infinity War was depressing,” he said. “It sort of left you like what did I just see and that’s been sort of the problem to date with some of these movies. They are starting to take themselves too seriously.”
Ultimately, Tammero thinks that as long as the movies Hollywood produces are of high quality, their success is inevitable.
“I mean content is king. If you build it, they will come. If movies are good, people will show up.
