Avengers: Endgame, Detective Pikachu Dominate Worldwide Weekend Box Office With Over $160 Million Each

Avengers: Endgame and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu dominated the worldwide box office this past weekend as the two films brought in over $160 million each. Thanks to that, the highest-grossing Marvel movie of all time inched closer to Avatar's record total — Endgame is now at $2.485 billion (about Rs. 17,477 crores) vs the latter's $2.788 billion (about Rs. 19,608 crores) — while the first-ever live-action Pokemon movie is already eyeing the list of top-10 highest-grossing video game adaptations of all time.

Of the two, Avengers: Endgame had a slightly better weekend across the globe, garnering an additional $165.3 million (about Rs. 1,162 crores) in its third weekend, while Pokemon: Detective Pikachu picked up $161 million (about Rs. 1,132 crores) on its debut. Of Endgame's weekend total, an estimated $63 million (about Rs. 443 crores) came in from the home market of the US, while the rest $102.3 million (about Rs. 719.6 crores) was courtesy of all other international markets. For Detective Pikachu, the split was $58 million (about Rs. 408 crores) from the US, and $103 million (about Rs. 724.55 crores) from the rest.

Thanks to the $63 million haul in the US, Avengers: Endgame is now the third highest-grossing film of all time in the country, behind Avatar ($760 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million). And in combination with the international weekend gross, the Marvel film is now $302 million (about Rs. 2,124 crores) away from Avatar's worldwide total, which the James Cameron-directed film achieved over multiple releases. Endgame hasn't even been out for a month yet.

Detective Pikachu's $58 million opening in the US meant it secured the largest opening weekend for a video game adaptation there, besting a record held by the 2001 Angelina Jolie-starrer Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ($47.7 million). Internationally, China was the biggest earner for the Pokemon movie with nearly $41 million (about Rs. 288 crores), followed by the UK ($6.6 million), Germany ($5 million), Mexico ($4.97 million), France ($4.8 million), Australia ($3.5 million), South Korea ($3.2 million), Italy ($2.8 million), Spain ($2.2 million), Indonesia ($2.14 million), and Taiwan ($2.06 million). It's yet to open in Russia, where it releases May 16.

Put that together with its $13 million (about Rs. 91.42 crores) earnings in Japan, where it opened a week earlier, and Detective Pikachu is already up to $170 million (about Rs. 1,195 crores) worldwide. It has a fair way to go to become the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time worldwide, which is currently led by the 2016 disaster that was Warcraft ($433 million), which made most of its gross in China, and last year's Dwayne Johnson-starrer Rampage ($428 million), which was also panned by critics.

In fact, video game films don't have a good track record with critics in general. For what it's worth, Detective Pikachu has the highest average rating of all live-action video game movies, per reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.