Ah, April 26; the designated national day for honoring pretzels, kids and pets, and historic markers of all time-specific prestige.
The theatrical releases of Challengers and Boy Kills World are happening today, marking two of the latest inductees into the pop culture sphere of “on this day” observances, but what else does this fine spring morning have to offer up from its past?
Avengers: Endgame releases to theaters
Don’t let yesterday’s Twitter/X trend fool you too much. It’s true that Marvel Studios’ peerless juggernaut dropped in UK cinemas yesterday, but the film would arrive a day later in the United States and India on this day, April 26, in 2019.
With a worldwide box office gross of $2.799 billion, Avengers: Endgame shot to the top of the world as the highest-grossing movie in history, a title that would be taken away in 2021 when James Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi film Avatar re-released to theaters in China (at the time of writing, Avatar‘s total gross numbers $2.923 billion).
To this day, Endgame remains both Marvel Studios’ greatest achievement, and a symbol of its greatest weakness. Having been armed with 22 movies’ worth of character development that served the characters first and the continuity second, Endgame thrived on organic emotional weight combined with its much more visible, unprecedented crossover factor. Post-Endgame, however, the MCU has made the fatal mistake of serving its continuity first and its characters second, perhaps in hopes of fast-tracking to another Endgame-sized event as though under the false pretense that the cameos drove the franchise’s power during those first couple phases.
Here’s hoping, then, that the MCU quits looking at Endgame with envy and instead uses it as honest inspiration for the next Endgame’s foundation.
Channing Tatum’s birthday
Today marks the arrival of one Channing Matthew Tatum into the world back in 1980. The now-44-year-old actor has since gifted us numerous memorable performances, from his debut in 2005’s Coach Carter as Jason Lyle to what will no doubt be a captivatingly insidious turn as Slater King in Blink Twice, due in theaters this summer.
Perhaps Tatum’s most prolific roles were Greg Jenko in the Jump Street film series, where he starred alongside Jonah Hill as the muscle-headed half of the outrageous undercover cop duo, and the eponymous Mike Lane in the Magic Mike film series. The original Magic Mike, of course, was inspired by Tatum’s own experiences working as a male stripper, and the actor has since starred in and produced all three films in the trilogy (Magic Mike XXL followed the original 2012 film in 2015, while the final entry, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, hit theaters in early 2023).
Seven Samurai came along, and the world forever changed
Today, Akira Kurosawa is known as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in history. Back in 1954, Kurosawa was known as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of that time, and “of that time” officially became “in history” following the release of Seven Samurai on this day, April 26, later that year.
Despite a tumultuous, year-long shoot, Seven Samurai would go on to become one of the most revered works in cinema, topping the BBC’s 2018 international critics’ poll of greatest foreign-language features of all time and informing the language employed by an innumerable number of films that came after it (including Rebel Moon, according to Zack Snyder; luckily, Kurosawa isn’t around anymore to see those movies).
So, if you’ve got six and a half hours on your hands today, go boot up an Avengers: Endgame/Seven Samurai double feature, and go buy yourself a birthday cake in honor of Channing Tatum to eat while watching. Happy April 26 from all of us at We Got This Covered!
