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Monday April 30, 2018

Box Office: Moviegoers Assemble for ‘Avengers’

Avengers: Infinity War sets box office records

Sorry. Hulk faster than that. 

And it belongs to “The Avengers” once more.

Records are made to be broken, and what goes around comes around, and what came around this past weekend was the lastest (and last?) installment of Earth's Mightiest Superheroes, the Avengers, in “Avengers: Infinity War,” which—shocking me anyway, since I thought we were kinda done with them—opened to $257.7 million. That's the new record. it broke the opening-weekend record (domestic, unadjusted) set two and a half years earlier by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which opened to $247.9 million . That broke “Jurassic World”'s record of $208, which just nipped the record set three years earlier by, yes, “The Avengers.” Sorry. “Marvel‘s The Avengers.”

It’s the 10th time this century that a new opening weekend record (domestic, unadjusted) has been set. Chronologically: 

Rnk Movie Opening % of Total Thtrs Total Release
65 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone $90.2 28% 3,672 $317.5 11/16/01
38 Spider-Man $114.8 28% 3,615 $403.7 5/3/02
24 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest $135.6 32% 4,133 $423.3 7/7/06
18 Spider-Man 3 $151.1 45% 4,252 $336.5 5/4/07
14 The Dark Knight $158.4 30% 4,366 $533.3 7/18/08
11 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 $169.1 44% 4,375 $381.0 7/15/11
5 Marvel's The Avengers $207.4 33% 4,349 $623.3 5/4/12
4 Jurassic World $208.8 32% 4,274 $652.2 6/12/15
2 Star Wars: The Force Awakens $247.9 26% 4,134 $936.6 12/18/15
1 Avengers: Infinity War $257.6 n/a 4,474 $257.6 4/27/18

You know what's interesting about this list? Every one of these movies wound up the biggest movie of their respective years. Even the movies that burst out of the gate and kinda died. Your “Spider-Man 3”s and “Harry Potters and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”s. Even those.

But becoming the biggest movie of the year is much tougher for this “Avengers” since another film in the MCU, “Black Panther,” has already become the third-highest grossing film of all-time (domestic, unadjusted). So for “Infinity War” to beat it, it has to do what “Marvel's The Avengers” did back in 2012: gross three times its opening weekend gross. It can't burst out of the gate and kinda die. It can't be “Spider-Man 3.” 

I know. It already isn't.

Interesting list. Which movie on it would you see again? Which three would you choose for a film festival? None are exactly “Casablanca.”

I see “Infinity War” tomorrow. Wish me luck. 

Posted at 07:25 PM on Monday April 30, 2018 in category Movies - Box Office