After seeing the $1 billion box office record set by the previous Avengers movies, the bar for Marvel heroes like Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, or showing events that changed the shape of the franchise like the Snap in Avengers: Infinity War. As such, the absence of Avengers movies since 2019's Avengers: Endgame is decidedly notable.

While it makes sense to leave the Avengers films for some time while a new team lineup is being built in-universe, the decision to spend this considerable chunk of time without the integral MCU team does mean the pressure is on more than ever for Avengers: Doomsday's story to match the heights of previous Avengers installments - which is no small feat given the achievements of these prior releases. This is particularly true when looking at the box office takings of the films that have come before Avengers: Doomsday and the MCU movie's 2026 release.

Avengers: Doomsday Has Some Major Movies To Live Up To

As the next Avengers movie to come after Avengers: Endgame and its staggering success in of both its critical and commercial reception, Avengers: Doomsday naturally has some trials to undergo in order to uphold the standard set for the series. However, even if Endgame hadn't been as mindbogglingly successful as it was, the Avengers movies would still set a high story bar for what comes next in more than one way.

Though by no means all universally perfect superhero movies, the Avengers films manage the task of bringing an increasing number of characters into the MCU spotlight and converging a selection of major storylines into one cohesive and entertaining release. To add to this, the Avengers movies also balance being huge story points of an overarching franchise and self-contained stories that could be watched without seeing every single installment that came before, since these releases ideally need to be a culmination of everything that came before, but also as something that works by itself in its own right.

With this having been pulled off on an increasingly major scale, Avengers: Doomsday has a lot to live up to on a narrative level, especially with the MCU having more moving parts than ever in some ways. Looking at the box office results of these installments, Doomsday also needs to match the stories of the previous Avengers movies to put it in as strong a position as possible to match the financial records set by all prior films in the crossover series.

Every Avengers Movie Having A Box Office Result Of Over $1 Billion Sets An Even Higher Bar For Avengers: Doomsday

When looking at the respective box offices of the four existing Avengers movies, a considerably high bar is set for future installments, since each of these four movies all separately earned over $1 billion in their worldwide box office results. Naturally, Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War's financial results are considerably above this margin - with a $2.7 billion and $2 billion worldwide box office respectively (via The Numbers) - but even the Avengers movies that weren't as mindbogglingly successful still brought home substantial box office results.

Indeed, The Avengers is the Avengers movie with the third-greatest box office, and the fourth-highest worldwide box office of all of Marvel Studios' films, having netted itself $1.5 billion in its own run. While the lowest grossing of the Avengers series, Avengers: Age Of Ultron's $1.39 billion worldwide box office results are certainly nothing to scoff at, and are substantially over the $1 billion mark themselves.

Even though it has the lowest box office of any Avengers movie, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is still one of 11 MCU movies to have earned over $1 billion in its worldwide box office - which is a considerable achievement for the franchise.

As such, not only does Avengers: Doomsday have some serious story feats to compare up to, it also has some serious box office results to match or even try to best. While it's essentially guaranteed the film will be provided a healthy budget to ensure its spectacle can be fully handled, a considerable budget doesn't inherently result in a stellar box office result, as has been proven several times over the years, perhaps most recently with Joker: Folie Á Deux's own box office paling in comparison to the original 2019 Joker, despite the first having a far lower budget than its sequel.

Avengers: Doomsday's Cast Announcements Have Already Teased How It Will Try To Match The MCU's Biggest Movie Box Offices

Avengers: Doomsday's place in the MCU timeline and in the Avengers film series certainly gives it some big boots to fill, but the MCU has already alluded to the ways in which the 2026 movie will rise to the occasion. The March 2025 Avengers: Doomsday cast announcement has already promised some major things for the story, including both that major MCU characters like Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Tom Hiddleston's Loki will return in the release, and that a series of actors from the Fox X-Men movies will be reprising their roles in the MCU.

Given Spider-Man: No Way Home's own $1b+ box office success can be attributed in no small part to the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man - as well as the return of several iconic Spider-Man movie villain actors reprising their roles again alongside them - and Deadpool & Wolverine's own Marvel movie cameos worked to the same effect 3 years later, this seems to bode well for Doomsday. While not a guarantee of success, having figures like Ian McKellen's Magneto and James Marsden's Cyclops offers a strong extra reason for fans to catch the movie upon its immediate release.

On a similar note, Robert Downey Jr's return to the franchise as Doctor Doom - though something that has seen some mixed responses - also offers another point of intrigue that is sure to encourage audiences to see the movie, if only to witness how the MCU will explain Doctor Doom looking like the MCU's Iron Man. With Robert Downey Jr having previously been an integral part of the MCU as Tony Stark, it also bridges the gap in a sense for those who became particularly invested in his depiction of Iron Man, since Robert Downey Jr's MCU story still continues in a different way in this release.

Hopefully, this can offer a two-pronged appeal for audiences, with many of the names and faces who made the earlier chapters of Marvel's movie history so beloved returning once more, and plenty of newer additions to the MCU getting the chance to cement their status as new cornerstones and icons of the on-screen franchise. However, given the high bars set by the previous Avengers movies in of both critical and box office success, Avengers: Doomsday is certainly set up for some challenges in making sure it follows in these previous installments' footsteps properly.