This weekend’s box office is shaping up to be one of the most crowded of the year, with four wide releases all aimed at different audiences going head-to-head. Disney and Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame: Encore returned to 3,060 North American screens on Friday, seven years after the original 2019 blockbuster first hit theaters, and got off to the strongest start of the weekend’s new arrivals, collecting $3.8 million in Thursday previews.
That preview number puts Endgame: Encore ahead of last year’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith re-release, which opened to $3.4 million in previews. The studio is projecting the re-release to gross around $25 million domestically over the weekend, with another $25 million to $30 million expected from international markets. The re-release also includes four minutes of previously unseen footage from Avengers: Doomsday, offering fans an early look at Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Victor von Doom ahead of that film’s December 18 release.
Both Endgame and Doomsday come from directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and the re-release is playing across more than 1,300 premium large-format screens as part of the new Infinity Vision certification launching this same weekend. In its original 2019 run, Endgame opened to a record-setting $1.2 billion globally and held the all-time domestic previews record of $60 million for years, a mark since overtaken only by this year’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
A24’s Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as journalist Chris Hansen, opened in more than 2,800 North American theaters and brought in $2.7 million in Thursday previews, tracking toward a domestic opening between $12 million and $16 million. That preview number came in just shy of the $2.9 million Robert Pattinson’s 2024 film Civil War pulled in at the same stage, which went on to open at $25.5 million, though it comfortably outpaced his more recent previews for this year’s The Drama ($1.7 million previews, $19 million opening).
The film holds a strong 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney calling it a “peak Sleaze TV rerun, for whoever wants it.” Directed by Lance Oppenheim, the cast also includes Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers.
Paramount’s Heart of the Beast, starring Brad Pitt as a Special Forces officer stranded in the wilderness with his combat dog, opened across 3,400 North American theaters, earning $2 million in Thursday previews. The studio expects the David Ayer-directed film to land between $17 million and $20 million domestically for the weekend. The film has also drawn a strong 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, notably higher than the 40% audience score for Ad Astra, a film in a similar space of grounded, character-driven survival drama.
Rounding out the weekend’s new arrivals is Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, aimed squarely at family audiences and giving the frame a genuine four-way split across different demographics: Endgame: Encore drawing longtime Marvel fans, Primetime pulling in Gen Z and Pattinson’s audience, Heart of the Beast targeting adult moviegoers outside major cities, and Forgotten Island rounding things out for families.
Heading into the weekend, industry trackers had expected the closest race to be between Endgame: Encore and the sophomore weekend of Sony and Constantin’s Resident Evil, projected in the $21 million to $24 million range in its second outing. With four films now all projected to cross the $20 million mark, this weekend stands out as one of the more competitive and demographically varied box office frames of the year, testing just how much appetite audiences have for a mix of nostalgia, awards-adjacent drama, grounded action and family animation all at once.
