Avengers: Endgame, a Three-Hour Finale for an $18 Billion Franchise

The wait to find out what happens on the other side of The Snap is over. By the time you read this, the rollout of Walt Disney Co.’s Avengers: Endgame will have already begun unspooling to fans across the world, the epic finale featuring gargantuan battles as well as a resurrection, of sorts, at the end of Marvel’s superheroes-and-foes saga.

The film, which opens this week on a record 4,600 screens nationwide, is the culmination of a 21-movie buildup of standalone installments, sequels, spinoffs, and superhero mashups that began with the release of Iron Man in 2008. In that time the franchise has generated $18.6 billion worldwide in ticket sales, a springboard for handsomely profitable television shows and merchandise.