Oh boy! I think we all knew The Avengers was going to make a lot of money, but I'm not sure that anyone could have predicted THIS much. Weekend estimates now put it over the $200 million mark and depending on exactly where Sunday numbers total could be up to $207 million. This means The Avengers has now taken the top slot as the top grossing film for an opening weekend as it replaced Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II by more than $30 million (which had held the top slot since July 2011). This now brings The Avengers total to $642 million worldwide, and it is just getting started.
When looking at these numbers it has to be taken in to account that this movie also had 52% of its sales in the higher priced 3D tickets, but with such a steep differential between the previous record and The Avengers' take, this movie would probably still would have beaten Harry Potter…badly. Holdover, Think Like Man managed to stay in second place but dropped 54%, down to $8 million. And The Hunger Games moved back up to number 3 as audiences got in the mood for some summer action. This was a great sign for many studios as The Avengers kicks off the Summer Film series as they hope people will continue to come out in droves and go to the movies again. I think the biggest question now, is will The Dark Knight Rises (the sequel to the current third place holder The Dark Knight) beat even more than $200 million?
Box Office
 | 1. The Avengers $200 million / New / $642m Total Worldwide Critical and cult darling Joss Whedon proves that he can open a mainstream movie with Hulk-like numbers at the box office. Not only that, he can make a super-hero movie funny and really really good. Ahh, I just want to see it again! |
 | 2. Think Like A Man $8 million / $73m Total Domestic Didn't even come close to The Avengers, but still holding on to the top slot of "all of the rest of the movies" in theaters this weekend. |
 | 3. The Hunger Games $5.7 million / $381m Total Domestic / $618m Total Worldwide The Avengers has already made more money worldwide than The Hunger Games, which leaves me kind of speechless. |
 | 4. The Lucky One $5.5 million / $48m Total Domestic / $66m Total Worldwide Still hanging in and I'm not sure if it's Nicholas Sparks, Zac Efron, or the sunshine in the poster attracting people. |
 | 5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits $5.4 million / $18.6m Total Domestic / $89m Total Worldwide Dropped down to number 5 from the number 2 slot this weekend - but, I think this once again has to do with, yup, you guessed it, The Avengers. The Pirates! had a big audience of families and I suspect many of them went to see the also kid friendly superhero filled movie. It also has made 79% of it's money outside of the U.S. and is bringing in quite a bit of treasure worldwide. |
 | 6. The Five-Year Engagement $5.1 million / $19.2m Total Domestic / $21.5 Total Worldwide Only down one slot to number six, but dropped 50% in its box office. This love affair is not lasting very long. |
 | 7. The Raven $2.5 million / $12m Total Domestic / $15.6 Total Worldwide Dropped 66% in ticket sales. Maybe if this had come out around Halloween it would have helped scare up a bigger audience? |
 | 8. Safe $2.5 million / $12.9m Total Domestic Similar to The Raven, it dropped almost 70% from its opening weekend. However, I don't think a Jason Statham movie will have trouble making up a lot of money on the DVD. Perhaps they should go ahead and release that already…now. |
 | 9. Chimpanzee $2.4 million / $23m Total Domestic Has stayed in the top 10 for 3 weeks, and it ranks 7th for all documentaries. Pretty impressive little chimp, pretty impressive. |
 | 10. The Three Stooges $1.8 million / $39.6m Total Domestic Ranks 47th for films that are TV adaptations…at least it beat My Favorite Martian. |
How much business do you think these other films got simply from people trying to get into the Avengers but finding out it was full so they had to see something else?
That's a great question. I'd be interested in knowing as well.
I don't think TDKR will will surpass The Avenger's opening weekend record mainly because of the 3D premium.
I really hope it's good, but the more I see about Dark Knight Rises, the more I think it's going to be the Spider-Man 3 of the series. The Dark Knight is just such a hard act to follow. I think it will do well, but I don't think it will beat these Avengers numbers since Avengers seems to be a lot more "family friendly" and a lot of people seeing it were people with kids, where I don't think many kids will go to, let alone enjoy, DKR.
$200 million is just ridiculous and from the other totals it seems like no one else went to see anything else.
LETS PUT IT IN ALL CAPS. CAUSE WE'RE SERIOUS THIS TIME. RAAAR.
@FinalDasa said:
It's the freakin' Avengers man. People have waited since the credits rolled at the end of IronMan for this one.
@Paindamnation: Yeah but $200 million is a lot of money. The final Harry Potter film (which had 7 films and 7 films worth of hype) still fell short of the 200 mark. This is the Disney marketing machine at its best.
Looks like Disney has found their new Nintendo DS. Like I am interested in how many people saw something else because the Avengers were sold out or just bought a ticket for something else and just crashed the Avengers theater.
TDKR will make gobs of money maybe not a billion but 750 millon. Avengers will bring in waaay more money in the ancillary markets than TDKR. I wouldn't mind a nice Bane action figure though.
Man LOL isn't in the top 10 =( I thought Miley was supposed to be the voice and actress of this generation.
@FinalDasa said:
Yeah. But Disney had such a screw up with John Carter. It needed this.
@Paindamnation said:
BOOM! Thisx2.
Also, so glad that hunger games is way behind this movie in the money charts, such a shitty movie, maybe Hollywood will start focusing on trying to make interesting and unique new films again like yesteryear. I doubt it!
@Toxin066 said:
Not a few of my friends had this happen to them. I bet that is the reason why Hunger Games sales jumped. Couldn't get into one action movie so settled on another.
Raven and Three Stooges both came out? I honestly didn't even notice.
Childhood icons. Right time and right competition to beat. Whedom at the helm. A marketing storm. PG-13 rating with just enough violence. Two golden haired boys, one hot russian spy, one pack wearing Samuel L Jackson, playboy Downey Jr playing his life if he were a super genius billionare, a likeable Hulk, . . . . yeah, I was worried but now, no so much anymore.
No surprises there.
Fantastic! Amazing! Spectacular! Astonishing!
@Paindamnation said:
Lol, maybe there will be a John Carter 2 now! ... ... ... ... or not
@MrMazz said:
I like to think everyone realized how fucking awful of an existence it would be if that were true...
It's good to hear that the Avengers did really well, i saw it on the weekend and i loved it. Absolutely awesome movie.
Honestly...
It takes about five minutes to read over an article and just proof-read it, look for the mistakes, and fix them. After that, you hit confirm.
I can't think of a story outside of anything litrock posts now that doesn't have at least three typos and grammar issues popping up. I know you guys are trying, but no proof-reading for about a month isn't trying hard enough.