Doomsday Pre-Sales Hit $50 Million Without IMAX Screens

Avengers: Doomsday has taken in $50 million in U.S. pre-sales, Disney chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said on September 9, with 100 days still left before the December 18 opening. He said 70 percent of those tickets are for Infinity Vision, Disney’s new quality stamp for large-format rooms.

That share is about $35 million already sitting in a house-branded premium seat, on a movie that will not play U.S. IMAX on opening weekend. Tracker Global Box Office had the same pre-sale pile at $40 million on September 8. Johnston’s studio figure the next day made Doomsday the first film to cross $50 million in pre-sales 100 days out.

Avengers Doomsday Hits $50 Million With 100 Days Left

Johnston was speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, walking investors through a slate that also includes Frozen and Incredibles sequels and another Avengers film later in the decade. Doomsday is the first Avengers movie in seven years, with Robert Downey Jr. returning as Doctor Doom and Anthony and Joe Russo back in the director chairs.

We’re three months out from the movie, and we already have $50 million of presales, literally three months out. So there is a ton of thirst and excitement within that fan base to see another Avengers movie.

Hugh Johnston, Chief Financial Officer, Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference

The $50 million already tops the $40 million pre-sale mark tied to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and is closing in on Avengers: Endgame’s $60 million. It still trails Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which reached $72 million in the same kind of early count and about $150 million by the Thursday before its July 31 opening.

THE HAUL ON SEPTEMBER 9

• Studio figure: Johnston put U.S. pre-sales at $50 million with 100 days left to December 18.
• Premium mix: 70 percent of that money, about $35 million, is Infinity Vision.
• Day-before print: Global Box Office had the total at $40 million on September 8.
• First-day cash: Infinity Vision tickets generated $16.5 million in the first 24 hours after going on sale.

Those comps are not the same length of sale, and Endgame’s tickets were on sale for a much shorter window than Doomsday’s. The 100-day lead is the part no earlier Marvel film had put on the board.

The First Tickets Were Infinity Vision Only

Disney did not open a normal multiplex grid on day one. Tickets went on sale July 20 with the first full trailer, and only Infinity Vision showtimes were offered, covering previews from December 17 through the end of that month. Standard seats arrived later, during D23 in August.

That head start is baked into the 70 percent figure. A buyer in July was not choosing Infinity Vision over a cheaper neighborhood screen. The certified room was the product on the shelf. By the time every showtime opened, the most committed fans had already paid the premium price.

The trailer that launched with those tickets drew 503 million views in 24 hours, the largest trailer launch in Disney history and the second-largest movie-trailer launch on record, behind Brand New Day’s 719 million. Deadpool & Wolverine’s Super Bowl teaser, the previous Disney high, had 365 million views including the broadcast.

Marvel titles then logged 420 million hours on Disney+ in August, a lift of more than 200 million hours, as Brand New Day played through theaters and Doomsday marketing told people to catch up. The loud online read of the $50 million is that December 18 will bury Dune: Part Three. Almost none of that noise mentions that most of the money is already in rooms IMAX does not control.

Three Weeks of IMAX Belong to Dune

Doomsday and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three share December 18. Warner Bros. kept the date, and IMAX’s February slate confirmed a U.S. exclusive for Dune, with a three-week hold around opening. Doomsday still plays IMAX in some overseas markets. It does not get the U.S. wall on night one. Neither 2026 Marvel tentpole was shot for IMAX.

Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution at Walt Disney Studios, said the gap out loud in June, on the eve of CineEurope.

We have a movie, it’s no secret, at the end of the year, Avengers: Doomsday, that does not have IMAX.

Andrew Cripps, Head of Theatrical Distribution, ICTA Cinema Technology Experience in Barcelona

Dune also gets a head start on the rarest prints. Select IMAX 70mm screenings begin December 14, with more IMAX shows on December 15, before the shared Friday. Only 25 U.S. theaters can run native IMAX 70mm. Disney’s answer was not to move Doomsday. It was to put a studio name on the next-best rooms and sell those seats first.

What Infinity Vision Certifies for Theaters

Infinity Vision is a new certification for premium large format theaters, announced April 16 at CinemaCon. Disney is not installing a new projector or building a new kind of room. Chains apply, and Disney puts its label on halls that clear a short list of picture and sound rules, then sells those showtimes as one product.

At launch Disney counted more than 75 qualifying U.S. rooms and 300 worldwide. The June rules, laid out as the studio began checking a much larger pile of applications, set a minimum screen width of 45 feet, immersive sound such as Dolby Atmos or 7.1, and brightness of 14 footlamberts in 2D or 6 footlamberts in 3D. A footlambert is a measure of how much light hits the screen. IMAX screens typically start around 60 feet wide.

INFINITY VISION VERSUS IMAX ON DOOMSDAY

Cripps told the same Barcelona room the program is voluntary. “We don’t have a team of people that we can send out and check,” he said. “Send us the screens that qualify, and then let’s talk about how we can more effectively market those screens.” The 45-foot floor is a multiplex large hall, not a cathedral screen. The $35 million already in those seats is a pricing and marketing result, not proof that Doomsday will look like an IMAX 70mm print.

Seventy-Five Local Brands and One Disney Umbrella

Cripps framed Infinity Vision as a marketing fix before he framed it as a quality test. “There are 75 exhibitor-owned PLF brands in North America, and there are over 320 exhibitor-owned PLF brands around the world,” he said. Marketing all of them, he added, is impossible. IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and ScreenX are names Disney can put in a national ad. Cinemark XD, Regal RPX, and a few dozen chain labels are not.

One studio stamp lets Disney sell “the best screen near you” without naming every chain’s pet format. That is why Infinity Vision can look like a rival to IMAX in a press release and still be a folder that holds Dolby, XD, and RPX inventory. Disney has said it will keep separate campaigns for IMAX, 4DX, and Dolby. The new label is for everything else that clears the bar.

WHAT THE BADGE ADDS IN THE ROOM

• A different file: Cripps said Infinity Vision gets a different DCP than a standard hall, with a different aspect ratio on some titles.
• Extra footage: He described a button, a filmmaker intro, and other extras that will change from movie to movie.
• One ad name: Disney can promote a single premium brand instead of 75 local ones.
• No inspectors: Chains send in rooms that they say qualify; Disney has no field team to verify them.

Toy Story 5 had already shown Disney what premium rooms do for an opening: nearly $64 million of its $159.6 million start came from large-format halls. Infinity Vision is an attempt to keep that share when the IMAX column is blank. Whether a rival studio ever prints the same logo on its own movies is a later question. For December, Disney only needs its own buyers to recognize it at checkout.

Endgame Encore Tests the Badge on September 25

The first Infinity Vision title is not Doomsday. It is Avengers: Endgame Encore, a re-release that opens September 25 with a custom intro, added footage, and an end tag that Disney said would be exclusive to Infinity Vision and IMAX. Every Encore screening includes a look at Doomsday. IMAX and Infinity Vision shows get a second sneak peek on top of that.

Disney launched InfinityVisionTickets.com in June, when it also said more than 7,500 exhibitor screens worldwide had applied for the badge. That pile is an order of magnitude above the 300 global rooms counted in April. The studio said it was still verifying them. Chain sites already list Encore in 2D-IV, Dolby-IV, XD-IV, and even 2D-IMAX-IV, which is how a certification behaves in the wild: it stamps rooms that already had a premium name.

INFINITY VISION FROM ANNOUNCEMENT TO OPENING

1. April 16, 2026: Disney unveils Infinity Vision at CinemaCon, with more than 75 U.S. rooms and 300 worldwide.
2. June 24, 2026: The studio says 7,500 screens have applied, launches the ticket site, and retitles the Endgame re-release as Encore.
3. July 20, 2026: The Doomsday trailer and Infinity Vision pre-sales go live together; first-day sales hit $16.5 million.
4. August 2026: Standard Doomsday seats go on sale at D23; Marvel titles log 420 million hours on Disney+ for the month.
5. September 9, 2026: Johnston puts U.S. pre-sales at $50 million, with 70 percent in Infinity Vision.
6. September 25, 2026: Endgame Encore opens, with extra Doomsday footage in Infinity Vision and IMAX rooms.
7. December 18, 2026: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three open on the same day; Dune holds U.S. IMAX for three weeks.

The Encore trailer pulled 77 million views in its first 24 hours, four times the launch of any prior re-release trailer. Tickets are already live on Disney’s own finder, including Endgame Encore showtimes on Infinity Vision alongside IMAX listings. That September weekend is the dress rehearsal for the December split.

The Odyssey Still Owns the True Giant Screens

Nolan’s Odyssey is what a scarce format still does when the movie was built for it. IMAX said on August 10 that the film had become its highest-grossing release, with $289 million in IMAX and more than 26 percent of its global box office coming from those screens. The 70mm film halls, 41 of them worldwide, had already taken in $37.5 million from 41 IMAX 70mm auditoriums, led by $2.8 million at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. IMAX also reported nearly $40 million in pre-sales for future Odyssey showtimes, and later stretched the 70mm run through September 30.

Those 41 rooms are the product Disney cannot copy with a 45-foot minimum and a voluntary form. Odyssey also had about $40 million in pre-sales of its own, a figure Doomsday has now passed with a three-month runway and a trailer that half a billion people watched in a day. The two movies are not in a photo finish. They are selling different things. Nolan is selling a print that almost nobody else can hang. Disney is selling a recognizable premium seat in whatever large hall the local chain already runs.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day already proved a Marvel movie can mint records without a clean U.S. IMAX opening, because Odyssey had those screens in July. Doomsday is the winter version of that bet, with a studio badge on the substitute rooms and $50 million in the till before Thanksgiving. Dune still has the IMAX wall in December. The money Disney has already collected is not on that wall.

Avengers: Endgame Encore opens September 25, with extra Doomsday footage in Infinity Vision and IMAX rooms. Doomsday itself arrives December 18, on the same Friday Dune: Part Three takes the U.S. IMAX screens for three weeks.