We did it, folks. Through sheer nerd-power and fan energy, we’ve managed to defeat the evil that is blue CGI aliens AKA Avatar. James Cameron’s science fiction tale of humans colonizing a moon (it’s a moon, not a planet, I checked) has finally been dethroned and is now the second highest-grossing film of all time.

After a second run, Avengers: Endgame has finally beaten Avatar and is now officially the highest-grossing film of all time. According to Bloomberg, the most ambitious superhero crossover film (so far) has raked in an estimated US$2,790 billion worldwide as of 21 July 2019. Avatar, on the other hand, accumulated US$2,789 billion and thanks to that amount, it sat at the top spot for pretty much a decade.

A shot from Avatar. The film was indeed gorgeous.

This isn’t Marvel’s (and Disney’s) first big achievement in the last ten 10 years. While Avatar was still top dog, the MCU was dominating the box office charts for at least 4 separate years. This year’s top-grossing film is obviously Endgame while last year’s was its prequel Avengers: Infinity War. In 2016, Captain America: Civil War was the top-grossing film and in 2012, it was the first Avengers movie.

With an average grossing of US974 million for each film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the highest-grossing film franchise of all time for a while now. The only franchise with more films than the MCU is the James Bond franchise which has 26 films while the MCU has 23 (up to Spider-Man: Far From Home).

With the announcements of a lot more projects coming out in the next two to three years, the MCU-train isn’t stopping anytime soon. It is indeed a great time to be alive for fans of superhero comic books and movies.