{"id":34023,"date":"2012-05-07T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=34023"},"modified":"2018-02-20T12:47:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T20:47:45","slug":"boxoffice-may-7-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/boxoffice-may-7-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Box Office: ‘Avengers’ Crush Opening Weekend Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was no doubt that Marvel’s superhero team-up movie would open very strong, but I don’t think that anyone predicted it to shatter the previous $169 million opening weekend record set by ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows \u2013 Part 2<\/a>‘ by more than $30 million. Sure, the movie has been performing very well overseas for the last two weeks, but a $200 million opening still seemed unimaginable.
\n<\/p>\n

‘The Avengers<\/strong>‘ was expected to earn $172.5 million, which would barely pass that ‘Harry Potter’ finale, but the actual $200 million figure is pretty mind-blowing. The film also took the top honors for highest superhero midnight opening with $18.7 million. (The previous record-holder was ‘The Dark Knight<\/a>‘ with $18.5 million.) In just three little days, ‘The Avengers’ has grossed more domestically than ‘Captain America<\/a>‘, ‘Thor<\/a>‘ and ‘The Incredible Hulk<\/a>‘ during each of their theatrical runs. <\/p>\n

Currently sitting pretty with a 93% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes<\/em><\/a>, this is one title that the critics seem to love just as much as general viewers. Audiences were comprised of both older and younger moviegoers, 50% above age 25 and 50% below. 60% of the audience was male, and 52% of the opening totals came from 3D showings. While I previously thought that ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ could take back the highest-grossing opening weekend record, I don’t believe that’s possible without the added 3D surcharge that ‘The Avengers’ had.<\/p>\n

The previous #1 movie, ‘Think Like a Man<\/strong>‘, slid down to the #2 spot, adding another $8 million to its $73 million haul. That’s a pretty impressive 17-day total for a $12 million movie. ‘The Hunger Games<\/strong>‘ is also still faring well after seven weeks on the big screen. Finishing in the #3 slot this weekend with $5.7 million, the movie has now grossed $380.7 million domestically. Box Office Mojo<\/em><\/a> notes that ‘The Hunger Games’ is currently in the 14th slot for all-time domestic earnings and should pass ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows \u2013 Part 2’ early this week.<\/p>\n

Beyond the $46,057 per-screen average for ‘The Avengers’, also noteworthy was Fox Searchlight’s ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel<\/strong>‘, which opened on 27 screens and pulled in a welcoming $750,000. That averages out to $27,778 per screen. None of the other limited openers even came close. The documentary ‘First Position<\/strong>‘ earned $51,000 on five screens, which isn’t too shabby. What is<\/em> shabby, however, was the opening of Kate Hudson’s romantic cancer movie ‘A Little Bit of Heaven<\/strong>‘. On 11 screens, it only brought in $9,800. That’s a very weak $891 per-screen average. Ouch. I don’t know which is worse: ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ fizzling or the fact that Miley Cyrus’ ‘LOL<\/strong>‘ didn’t even make it on the early weekend box office report.<\/p>\n

Top 10:<\/h5>\n

1. ‘The Avengers’ (Buena Vista) – $200,300,000<\/p>\n

2. ‘Think Like a Man’ (Screen Gems) – $8,000,000<\/p>\n

3. ‘The Hunger Games’ (Lionsgate) – $5,700,000<\/p>\n

4. ‘The Lucky One’ (Warner Bros.) – $5,510,000<\/p>\n

5. ‘The Pirates! Band of Misfits’ (Sony) – $5,400,000<\/p>\n

6. ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ (Universal) – $5,100,000<\/p>\n

7. ‘The Raven’ (Relativity) – $2,508,000<\/p>\n

8. ‘Safe’ (Lionsgate) – $2,470,000<\/p>\n

9. ‘Chimpanzee’ (Buena Vista) – $2,395,000<\/p>\n

10. ‘The Three Stooges’ (Fox) – $1,800,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was no doubt that Marvel’s superhero team-up movie would open very strong, but I don’t think that anyone predicted it to shatter the previous $169 million opening weekend record set by ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows \u2013 Part 2‘ by more than $30 million. Sure, the movie has been performing very well overseas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":34022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,743],"tags":[198,626,5064,178,5068,2951,2879,5066,4517,1080,4986],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34023"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34205,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34023\/revisions\/34205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}