Today, I'll be covering The Avengers' record-breaking opening weekend gross and The Pirates!' second weekend total, since it's an animated film of course.
My highest prediction for The Avengers' opening weekend was $160 million, and I thought my prediction was crazy. Not only did the film destroy the record held by last year's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 2, it also became the first film to gross over $200 million on its opening weekend. With a grand total of $207 million, it even stands above that film and The Dark Knight's adjusted opening weekends, so it's the biggest opening of all time. This is amazing, and also satisfying because... It was a fantastic film. It's what every action/summer blockbuster should be, and hopefully the success of the film will prove to Hollywood that audiences will come out in droves to see "good" films that are well-marketed. Disney, why don't you devote that effort into marketing other films?
Speaking of poorly-marketed films, John Carter got a nice boost. Either Disney attached the film to The Avengers for special double bill screenings, or they fudged the numbers. This happened last year when Tangled got a boost when Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides hit theaters. The film has now crossed $70 million, so it's nice to see it get one last boost before fading away. (Home video should save it) That said, The Avengers deserves to be the huge success that it is. Now will it have good word of mouth? I'd say yes, considering how it destroyed both the Saturday and Sunday records. When I saw it, the audience applauded multiple times throughout and laughed hysterically at all of the comic relief. Yeah... $500 million is definitely not out of reach for this film. $600 million may also be possible.
Which raises another question: Will The Dark Knight Rises top this? I always thought that this would be the biggest film of the year, considering how huge The Dark Knight was. Sure, this has no Heath Ledger, but I assumed it would still crash the opening weekend record and take home $500 million domestically because it's a Batman movie and Nolan's Batman films were all well-received and loved by audiences. With The Avengers performing like an absolute monster, this might fall short of that, but it will still do extremely well. It looks great, the marketing is good, and The Dark Knight still would've been a very big success if Heath Ledger never passed away. You got to remember how Batman Begins was a sleeper hit, so anticipation was already high for the sequel. So with The Avengers grossing an amazing $207 million over the weekend, how much do you think it will make in the long run? What's the highest it can go?
In other news, Aardman's The Pirates! Band of Misfits took a dip over the weekend. While every other movie had dropped considerably, it seems like The Pirates! is done for, since kids and families will be flocking to The Avengers. Which makes me wonder, how come Columbia Pictures didn't release this film in the first week of April? No competition, since Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and Mirror Mirror were already out of the gate. They could've had a small hit on their hands with good word of mouth, but now The Avengers tidal wave has wiped it out along with several other films. This might have trouble even making it to $40 million, which is a shame. Or maybe it will do better in the long run. What do you think?
What are your thoughts on The Avengers destroying the opening weekend record? Do you think The Pirates! still has a chance to do well? Sound off!
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