'Avengers: Endgame' powers past 'Detective Pikachu' to win the weekend box office, and is now the 3rd highest-grossing movie ever domestically

• "Avengers: Endgame" won the domestic weekend box office for a third-straight weekend with a $63.1 million take.
• It fought off Warner Bros.' new release, "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which brought in $58 million, the fourth-best domestic opening of the year.
• The domestic total for "Endgame" is now at $724 million, the third-highest ever.
• Worldwide, the movie is still number two all-time with $2.486 billion, around $300 million off the all-time leader "Avatar" ($2.788 billion).
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Disney's "Avengers: Endgame" had enough fight to win its first big battle at the domestic box office.

Now in its third weekend in theaters, the Marvel superheroes came up against its first worthy opponent in Warner Bros.' "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu" this weekend. But "Endgame" was able to keep the top spot at the box office for a third-straight weekend, taking in $63.1 million to the healthy $58 million brought in by the Ryan Reynolds-voiced Pokémon character.

The Disney win comes despite "Pikachu" winning the Friday box office, taking in $20.7 million (including $5.7 million in Thursday previews), while "Endgame" took in $16 million. But the fandom for the MCU was still strong, as the movie took in $27.4 million on Saturday, passing "Pikachu," which earned $$20.5 million on the day.

The "Endgame" third weekend figures are lower than what box office analysts predicted for the movie (predictions were around a $70 million weekend), but it earned enough to not just edge out a character from the popular Pokémon IP but become the third-highest domestic-grossing movie ever with a cume of $724 million (passing "Black Panther" with $700 million).

In any other instance,"Pikachu" would have easily made Warner Bros. the big weekend winner. Though "Endgame" took the thunder of the studio's launch of live-action Pokémon movies, "Detective Pikachu" still performed strong with a $14,000 per-screen average and the fourth-best domestic opening of the year (knocking off the $55 million opening for "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World").

Read more: The 10 best Pokémon games of all time, according to critics

The worldwide gross for "Endgame" is now $2.486 billion, just around $300 million off matching "Avatar" for the all-time record ($2.788 billion). But what "Endgame" can take in at the multiplex going forward will only get tougher. Next weekend Keanu Reeves shows up with "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum," and the following weekend Disney returns to theaters with the live-action "Aladdin."