Russian antimonopoly agency finds that ‘Avengers’ premiere reportedly delayed for Russian film was not, in fact, delayed

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has found that no violations were committed in granting Avengers: Endgame a Russian release date of April 29, four days later than the global release on April 24. The Telegram channel Povorot na Pravo, which submitted a complaint about the delay, reported on the FAS’s response.

Multiple sources had previously told the news outlet Vedomosti that Russia’s Culture Ministry put pressure on the film’s distributor to request an April 29 release to prevent competition with a Russian film called Billion. The FAS explained that because the distributor did submit a request for Endgame to be released on April 29, the release was never delayed. The authors of Povorot na Pravo objected that “release requests for many ‘delayed’ films are submitted with [later] dates due exclusively to actions on the part of the Culture Ministry that say, ‘Well, if you give us an earlier date, we’ll reject it.’”