If you were excited to see Avengers: Endgame shatter Avatar‘s all-time box office record back in 2019, well, we’ve got some bad news for you… Avatar is back on top again. James Cameron’s 2009 film was recently re-released in theatres in China over the past weekend where it earned $12 million, more than enough to reclaim the #1 spot. The all-time global box office total for Avatar is now sitting at over $2.8 billion, while Avengers Endgame remains at $2.797 billion. Disney has since acquired Avatar as part of the 20th Century Fox merger so they can lay claim to the record either way. Avatar producer Jon Landau had this to say:

“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.”

I guess it goes to show that Avengers: Endgame really did not beat Avatar by all that much and Disney / Marvel kind of stopped pushing once they had that final box office record under their belt. At this rate, Avatar could regain a sizeable lead as the movie is still playing in China and will probably return to theatres in other countries leading up to the release of Avatar 2 in 2022. That’s not to say Marvel couldn’t pull off something similar as well, but the real question is whether any of the Avatar sequels can hope to come close to that number. Are you surprised to see Avatar back on top?