The wait to find out what happens on the other side of the snap is over. By the time you read this, the roll-out of Walt Disney’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 on April 26 on a record 4,600 screens across the US, and locally, is the culmination of a 21-movie build-up of standalone instalments, sequels, spin-offs and superhero mash-ups that began with the release of Iron Man in 2008. In that time the franchise has generated $18.6bn worldwide in ticket sales, a springboard for infinitely profitable television shows and merchandise.

Most of that has accrued to Disney, which bought Marvel in 2009 and under its auspice built up a wave of hits the likes of which Hollywood has never seen. Three of the top-10 worldwide grosses of all time belong to Avengers movies, and a fourth, Blac...

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