Monday Morning Box Office Report: The Avengers Shatters the Opening Weekend Record

Posted by on May 7th, 2012   Filed under: Box Office
Source: IMDb

Well we all knew The Avengers had a shot at breaking some box office records, but I don’t think anyone expected it to put up these kinds of numbers. The movie earned an estimated $200 million in its first weekend, destroying the previous opening weekend record in North America previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ($169 million). Sequels to big movies tend to do even better than their predecessors, and since The Avengers is the sequel to four movies at once, this kind of makes sense. Overwhelmingly positive reviews clearly didn’t hurt either, and the movie has now already made $641 million worldwide. The rest of the competition seems barely even worth mentioning, with Think Like a Man coming in at #2 with a measly $8 million. Clearly it’s going to be tough for even The Dark Knight Rises to top The Avengers.

1. The Avengers — $200M
2. Think Like a Man — $8M
3. The Hunger Games — $5.7M
4. The Lucky One — $5.51M
5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits — $5.4M
6. The Five-Year Engagement — $5.09M
7. The Raven — $2.51M
8. Safe — $2.47M
9. Chimpanzee — $2.4M
10. The Three Stooges — $1.8M



  • Nelson

    I went out to see this movie and it exceeded my expectations by a huge amount. The fact that it is making a huge amount of money and seems to be well received, universally, is definitely icing on the cake.

    Maybe this will motivate OTHER film studios that work in this genre to really experiment and push for excellence

    I’m happy, but I have trouble imagining how the sequels for Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man could match up to this, or even come close.

    Iron Man could easily do very well, but probably not as well as this. I guess there is the possibility of cameos from the other heroes in “Iron Man 3″ though. That could be fun.

  • Kasper

    Nelson: I don’t think it’s the goal of the individual movies to make anywhere near as much as The Avengers. They’re aiming for good returns, solid blockbusters, but I doubt they expect every movie from now on to break boxoffice records. If they do about as well as they have so far I think Marvel’s happy.

  • 1138sw

    Great popcorn fun without a doubt and exceeded my expectations. Yes there were some weak spots and the beginning bordered on the cheezy a little, but once everyone got together it was non stop fun!

    The set pieces were just action packed and once the witty Joss Whedon dialogue got flowing it was just made everything that much better!

    Marvel/Disney has quite a franchise on their hands. As long as they don’t get “stupid” about how they handle upcoming projects, i.e. Joel Shumacher’s Batman…hire the right people to run these projects I think Marvel/Disney should be smiling all the way to the bank!

  • Anthony

    @ Nelson: Wouldn’t be surprised if *SPOILER ALERT* bruce banner is in Iron Man 3.

  • I’m amazed as anyone with the numbers, but I am a little frustrated reading some of the news. You would think that any movie that doesn’t open at 200m will now be considered a failure if you believe half the pundits out there.

    If Thor 2 got 65m opening, clunked through to a worldwide take of 500m, it will have been a HUGE success. It’s great to dominate a weekend like this, but it’s all about staying power (obviously the reviews mean the Avengers will have plenty of staying power), drop off over the weeks and quality product to be able to market the Blu Ray, Sequels etc.

    I put my back out this weekend, so never got chance to see it…next week :)

  • patrik

    Imagine a world where the studio would say “fair enough, Whedon. Here’s $50 million to do a Serenity sequel or whatever you want to do now.”

  • Phillip niethe

    Hey, if u have never seen firefly and serenity, go out and purchase it. Watch it. If u dont like it, watch it again. If u still dont like it, your devoid of any taste whatsover. And you probably love the expendables, god knows that was chalk full of literary genius.