Yes, the biggest North American movie is getting still bigger and still setting records. Playing very wide in 4,349 theaters, The Avengers looks like around $28M for Friday and approaches a gargantuan $100M second weekend. This will be far-and-away the highest second domestic weekend in box office history (passing Avatar‘s and The Dark Knight‘s $75M records). That means the holdover will drop only 53% after its record-setting opening. …
This 8th re-teaming of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton suffered weeks of soft tracking ahead of time, mostly because Avengers sucked all the air out of this month’s films trying to get pre-release attention. (Interestingly, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Paramount laugher The Dictator also is tracking soft before its opening next week. And not for lack of awareness…) Dark Shadows opened by making a so-so $550K during midnight screenings from 1,600 locations overnight. But it didn’t draw blood from 3,755 theaters later, either. instead it was creeping out of the gate with only about $10.5M Friday for at best a $28M weekend. Even though adaptations from TV to film generally perform modestly, Dark Shadows was predicted to earn a minimum of $35M — which is feeble considering the pic’s budget was a costly $150M-$175M. But it should have opened to at least a $40M-$50M weekend with the popular Depp-Burton push that last sent Alice In Wonderland grosses soaring past $1B worldwide for Disney. …
Overall, the weekend is looking like $164M or up +17% from last year. …
1. Marvel’s The Avenger (Disney) Week 2 [4,349 Theaters] PG13
Friday $29M (-64%), Weekend $100.0M, Cume $368.0M
2. Dark Shadows (Warner Bros) NEW [3,755 Theaters] PG13
Friday $10.5M, Weekend $28.0M
3. Think Like A Man (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 4 [2,052 Theaters] PG13
Friday $1.6M, Weekend $6.5M, Cume $82.0M
4. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) Week 8 [2,531 Theaters] PG13
Friday $1.2M, Weekend $4.3M, Cume $387.0M
5. The Lucky One (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,839 Theaters] PG13
Friday $1.1M, Weekend $4.1M, Cume $54.0M
Much more analysis here.
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