Avengers Sinks Battleship

The Friday showdown of comic juggernaut The Avengers and the Science Fiction action drenched Battleship turned out to be no contest. The Avengers raked in another $15.3 million, easily crushing Battleship which its disastrous $9 million premiere.

The Avengers is now predicted to easily win its third weekend in a row, pulling in somewhere around $55 million. That will drive its domestic total into the $457 million neighborhood. If it passes the $450 million on Sunday as expected it will become the the fastest movie to do so in only 17 days. shattering The Dark Knight’s 27 day record. The Avengers will also surpass Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest as Disney’s highest-grossing film ever.

Battleship’s poor first day puts it on track for a meager $26 million first weekend. With a budget of $209 million, Battleship looks to be an expensive domestic flop for Universal. This year’s other high profile flop John Carter managed a slightly better $30.2 million opening weekend. Both movies fared better overseas, but their high production and marketing costs doom them to financial failure without a huge domestic take. Both film’s start Taylor Kitsch, who is not getting his big screen career off to a particularly good start.

Meanwhile in other genre news Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows collapsed 61 percent to limp in at fifth place with $3.8 million.  The film has so far only earned back $41.9 million domestically ($78.6 million worldwide) against its $125 million budget.

(Source: boxofficemojo.com)

Avengers Passes $1 Billion Mark

The Avengers juggernaut continues, becoming the 12th film in history to earn over $1 Billion at the box office only 19 days after its release. It is the second fastest reaching that milestone after Avatar, which did it in only 17 days. Had the film not been released a week earlier in overseas markets its strong domestic showing probably could have out paced Avatar in reaching the milestone.

The Avengers set a new U.S. record for the biggest opening weekend with a $207 million debut, and set another for the the highest-grossing second weekend ever with an estimated $103 million. Other records include being the fastest movie to reach the $300 million and $350 million marks, and highest eight-day, nine-day, and ten-day grosses according to boxofficemojo.com. The Avengers is outperforming all pre-release estimates, and expectations now are that it will easily surpass the $500 million mark domestically.

There was little competition the weekend, with Dark Shadows as the highest profile release garnering poor reviews and disappointing with a $28.8 million opening.

The Avengers Sets Opening Weekend Record

Marvel’s The Avengers soared to a record breaking opening weekend with $200.3 million in domestic box office. That easily sets a new record for best opening ever, crushing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 which opened to $169.2 million last summer. The Avengers was unable to edge out Deathly Hallows: Part 2 for best Friday opening day, but a slim 13% drop in Friday to Saturday receipts  helped the film outpace Potter over the weekend.

The film opened in overseas markets a week earlier and continued to earn massive receipts this weekend, rising to $441.5 million through Sunday. In only three days of domestic release The Avengers worldwide total of $641.8 million has already surpassed the lifetime totals of its single hero lead in films:  Captain America: The First Avenger ($364 million), Thor ($449 million), Iron Man ($585 million) and Iron Man 2 ($624 million).

The Avengers is the first film in history to cross the $200 million mark in only three days at the domestic box office. It also set a new record for the biggest Saturday gross of all time with $69.7 million. IMAX theaters reported similar record business, with over  $15 million in ticket sales domestically tying Deathly Hallows Part 2 for the biggest opening weekend in the circuit’s history. The film is now projected to easily top $1 billion worldwide, a blessing for Disney after it’s disastrous John Carter forced it to take a $200 million write down.