Labor Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer, so that means that the summer movie season has come to an end as well. For one last hurrah, some studios brought back a few of their movies to theaters for a limited engagement run. Two of those that were brought back were arguably the two biggest movies of the summer, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘The Avengers’.
According to Deadline, Christopher Nolan’s final installment of his Batman trilogy achieved the milestone of becoming the 11th film in history to pass the $1 billion mark. The film grossed $431.4 million domestic and $574+ million international for a total $1.005+ billion through Sunday. That beats out it’s predecessor, ‘The Dark Knight’, which maxed out at $1.0003 billion worldwide in 2008.
Some charts, however, rank the film at number 12 because they take into account 2D films that are released years later in 3D, namely ‘Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace’, which technically falls at in on the number 10 slot on the list. But if you’re discounting that like Deadline and Warner Bros. have done, then TDKR is number 11.
Not to be outdone by the bat, Joss Whedon’s epic superhero team up film ‘The Avengers’ has racked up $619.5 million domestically and $1.501 billion worldwide, according to Collider. On the list of top 10 highest grossing films domestically, Captain America and company fell just under $40 million short of unseating James Cameron and ‘Titanic’ from the number two spot.
For those curious, here’s the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time domestically (in millions):
- ‘Avatar’ – $760,507,625
- ‘Titanic ‘– $658,672,302
- ‘The Avengers’ – $619,545,000
- ‘The Dark Knight’ – $533,345,358
- ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace’ – $474,544,677
- ‘Star Wars’ – $460,998,007
- ‘Shrek 2’ – $460,998,007
- ‘E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial’ – $435,110,554
- ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ – $431,196,000
- ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ – $423,315,812
And here’s the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time worldwide (in billions):
- ‘Avatar’ – $2,782.3
- ‘Titanic’ – $2,185.4
- ‘The Avengers’ – $1,501.8
- ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’ – $1,328.1
- ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ – $1,123.7
- ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ – $1,119.9
- ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ – $1,066.2
- ‘Toy Story 3’ – $1,063.2
- ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ – $1,043.9
- ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace’ – $1,023.3