Trade war or not, Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame breaks pre-release sales record with millions of China’s movie goers

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures’ Avengers: Endgame has broken the record for pre-release ticket sales in China, more than a week before Marvel Studios’ fourth instalment of the Avengers superhero series goes on show in the world’s second-biggest box office market.

The blockbuster sold a record 247 million yuan (US$36.8 million) in tickets on Maoyan as of Monday afternoon, a third of which are for the midnight show on April 24 in 3D IMAX format, according to data by China’s largest online ticket site. The 100 million yuan goalpost was surpassed within 10 hours of sales commencing.

That puts Avengers 4, as the movie is also called, on track to surpass the 2.4 billion yuan in ticket sales reported by its 2018 prequel Avengers: Infinity War, establishing it as the most successful Marvel movie in China, said Huatai Securities’ analyst Xu Juan.

Avengers 4 could “reach 3 billion yuan or more” in box office takings, Xu said. “China’s box office had a dismal March due to a lack of good films, so [Avengers: Endgame] will help release the pent-up demand” for entering a cinema, she said.

The greatest appeal of the movie, which counts Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in the ensemble cast, is with the male, postmillennial audience, where 57.8 per cent of the 1.63 million people who have expressed the desire to see the movie are men, while 81 per cent are between 20 and 34 years old, according to Maoyan’s data.