Star Wars Just Sent An Awesome Message Of Congratulations To Avengers: Infinity War

When it comes to opening weekend box office records, there is a nice tradition that has persisted in Hollywood. If one movie manages to surpass another, it's been custom for the new second place film to send a public letter of congratulations. With Avengers: Infinity War surpassing Star Wars: The Force Awakens this past weekend, the torch has once again been passed, and LucasFilm President Kathy Kennedy has released this note:

Posted on the official Star Wars Twitter account, this is a nice little letter that serves as a graceful bow. This past weekend Avengers: Infinity War managed to make $257.7 million in its domestic bow, which means that it took the opening weekend record set by Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December 2015 (with a total of $248 million). More than that, the Marvel Studios film also had the most successful international release of all time, having made $630 million globally compared to The Fate of The Furious' $541.9 million made in April last year.

If this looks familiar, it's because we've seen a couple of these note exchanges in recent years. For example, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens beat out the record set by Jurassic World ($208.8 million), Frank Marshall Tweeted the following:

Prior to that, specifically in summer 2015, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige sent a message to the cast and crew of Jurassic World, as the movie managed to break the record set by The Avengers in 2012 ($207.4 million):

I'd like to say that it's funny that this all ties back to Marvel, but the truth is that this tradition goes back a few decades. In the 1980s Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had trades publish letters to each other when one of their movies surpassed a record held by the other. It makes sense that Kevin Feige would bring back this tradition, publicly being a big fan of both filmmakers, and it's great that it has stuck around as a trend.

Thanks to inflation and rising ticket prices, we will eventually see a film beat Avengers: Infinity War's opening weekend records - but it will probably be a few years. I guess we'll just have to wait until then to see how Marvel once again passes the torch.

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.