‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Is Already Breaking Box Office Records, and the Movie Isn’t Out Until December

Marvel Studios hasn’t had an all-hands-on-deck Avengers team-up since 2019’s ‘Avengers: Endgame’ shattered box office history with a $357 million domestic opening weekend. That seven-year gap has left fans hungry for another full-scale reunion, and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is shaping up to be exactly that, bringing back Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans alongside a sprawling cast that spans multiple eras of Marvel storytelling.

Disney opened advance ticket sales for the film the moment its first trailer dropped ahead of San Diego Comic-Con, months earlier than studios typically release presale tickets for major tentpoles. That early launch was a calculated risk given the film’s December 18 release date still sits roughly four months away, but the numbers coming back have justified the gamble in a big way.

‘Avengers: Doomsday‘ pulled in $16.5 million in advance ticket sales within its first 24 hours of availability, according to Variety, a total that doubled the first-day presales of 2024’s ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ despite that film having every format and screen available at launch. That momentum has only accelerated since, with the film reportedly surpassing $20 million in domestic pre-sales roughly two weeks later, according to tracking data shared by Global Box Office, marking the biggest advance ticket total ever recorded this far ahead of a film’s release date.

What makes those numbers even more remarkable is how restricted the rollout has been. Tickets have only been available across roughly 1,000 domestic theaters through Marvel’s premium Infinity Vision format, a fraction of the more than 4,000 North American screens the film will eventually occupy on opening weekend. The format limitation exists partly because Warner Bros. secured exclusive access to IMAX screens for ‘Dune: Part Three,’ which shares the same December 18 release date, turning the day into what fans have already nicknamed “Dunesday.”

That excitement has trickled down to the theater level, where dedicated fans have taken to tracking individual showtimes and ticket counts at local AMC locations. One box office forum user recently documented Thursday preview sales across 10 Bay Area theaters, noting thousands of tickets sold across more than 100 showtimes well ahead of the film’s release, illustrating just how closely fans are monitoring every data point available to them.

While that kind of granular, theater-by-theater tracking comes with obvious limitations and can’t reliably predict a final opening weekend total, it reflects the same fervor driving the film’s official numbers nationwide. Industry watchers have noted that Doomsday’s early pre-sale kickoff already ranks as the third-highest 24-hour presale total for any post-COVID release, an especially notable achievement given the film’s limited access to premium formats compared to past record-setters.

Whether ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ can approach Endgame-level numbers remains genuinely uncertain, particularly given how much the box office landscape has shifted since 2019. Still, with showtimes for Thursday and Friday premium screenings already largely sold out and exhibitors reportedly adding more showings around Christmas, exhibitors appear confident demand will keep climbing as the release date approaches.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ brings together heroes from three distinct universes to face what Marvel has described as an existential threat unlike anything they’ve encountered before. With four months still to go and records already falling, the film’s eventual opening weekend has quickly become one of the most closely watched box office stories heading into the end of the year.

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