CinemaNerdz

Weekend Box-Office: The Avengers Smash Box-Office Records!

Seth Paul

What is the shortest amount of time a film has taken to make $200 million? Well, with the release of The Avengers, the answer is three days. No other film even came close to the big budget comic book film this week, which has not only garnered rave reviews from critics, but enough box-office green to make it an absolute smash. Having made an estimated $200.3 million its opening weekend (making it the biggest opening domestic weekend of all time) and $441.5 million overseas, not only is it the highest grossing film of 2012 so far, but could also be on pace to earn over $1 billion worldwide in record time as well (a record currently held by both Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at 19 days).

There was not much else in the way of surprises, other than the comparably much lower receipts for every other film. Think Like a Man lost its top spot and landed a distant second with an estimated $8 million, though it has still performed quite well, making $73 million in three weeks, and The Hunger Games has settled in as the second best performing of the year with an estimated $5.7 million this weekend and $617.7 million worldwide. The Lucky One pulled ahead of Aardman’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits, the former earning $5.5 million and the latter $5.4 million and surprisingly little heft on this side of the Atlantic, with $18 million in domestic earnings for its second week. Zac Efron’s romantic drama has fared much better with $47.9 million in domestic take.

The other debut films of the week before haven’t fared much better, either. The Five-Year Engagement made an estimated $5.1 million, and has done the best of the four releases with $19.2 million in total take, still well below its production costs. The Raven and Safe have both stalled out, The Raven earning an estimated $2.5 million and $12 million domestic and Safe under $2.5 million and $12.8 million domestic. Compare that to Chimpanzee, which continues to do quite well for a documentary, with an estimated $2.4 million and $23 million domestic…in fact, its domestic earnings in three weeks is better than the total take of The Five-Year Engagement, The Raven, or Safe’s worldwide take.

Lastly, The Three Stooges held onto the final spot, its estimated $1.8 million holding off the Joss Whedon-produced The Cabin in the Woods, meaning Whedon as producer has been knocked off the list by Whedon as director…and by quite a tidy sum.

Weekend Box-Office (May 4th – May 6th)

  1. The Avengers…$200.3 million
  2. Think Like a Man…$8 million
  3. The Hunger Games…$5.7 million
  4. The Lucky One…$5.5 million
  5. The Pirates! Band of Misfits…$5.4 million
  6. The Five-Year Engagement…$5.1 million
  7. The Raven…$2.5 million
  8. Safe…$2.5 million
  9. Chimpanzee…$52.4 million
  10. The Three Stooges…$1.8 million

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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