‘The Avengers’ Destroys Opening Weekend Box Office Record, Scores $200.3 Million

Industry analysts heading into the weekend box office expected The Avengers to do well based on the strength of positive reviews and fan hype but nobody predicted an opening weekend box office that would destroy the previous $169.2 million set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The Avengers managed to score a $200.3 million take, not bad for a movie that opened one week earlier overseas and managed to already earn $441.5 million for a worldwide take of $641.8 million in a one week period.

To put other Superhero movies in perspective, the total earned for Captain America: The First Avenger was a respectable $364 million while Thor did slightly better at $449 million, Iron Man scored even higher at $585 million and Iron Man 2 managed to pull down $624 million. However all of those movies spent weeks battling it out at the box office to pull in their big takes, something The Avengers has done in just one weeks time.

Among various records The Avengers has become the first movie in film history to break the $200 million mark in just three days, also scoring the largest Saturday gross of all time with $69.7 million.

The movie specifically did well thanks to word of mouth which kept the movies attendance numbers up by 87% from Friday through Saturday.

Studio numbers also reveal that 52 percent of movie watchers saw the production in 3D which helped push up the price per screen gross.

The movie is one of the most anticipated of the summer given its huge cast which includes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).

The movie has also played well on IMAX screens, earning $31.2 million.

It should be noted that this is the first Marvel film released by Disney since the company bought the comic studio, however Paramount is expected to earn as much as $115 million from this project and next summers Iron Man 3 after they agreed to end their Marvel relationship prematurely.

Here are the Top 10 movies of this past weekend:

1. The Avengers –$200.3 million.

2. Think Like a Man – 8 million, $73 million.

3. The Hunger Games –$5.7 million, $47.9 million.

4. The Lucky One –$5.5 million, $40 million.

5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits –$5.4 million, $18.6 million.

6. The Five-Year Engagement – $5.1 million, $19.3 million.

7. The Raven –$2.5 million, $12 million.

8. Safe –$2.5 million, $12.9 million

9. Chimpanzee –$2.4 million, $23 million.

10. The Three Stooges –$1.8 million, $39.6 million.