We saw this coming. It was written in the Asgardian stars that an army of heroes would come to knock Think Like A Man off the top spot in the space of about 30 seconds.
Joss Whedon’s The Avengers has arrived and you all went to see it this weekend. You and everyone’s grandma. Latest figures say that as of Sunday night after opening at midnight on Thursday, Marvel’s The Avengers is at $200.3 million. Just think about that for a minute: TWO HUNDRED MILLION. IN 3 DAYS!
Smashing a hammer right into the face of previous top spot holder, Harry Potter, who managed only the paltry sum of $169.2 million last summer, Thor & Co managed to Hulk-smash even more records on their way to the top.
Box Office Mojo reports that The Avengers.
was the fastest movie ever to reach $100 million, $150 million, and $200 million, and it set new records for Saturday ($69.7 million) and Sunday ($50.1 million) grosses. It also had the highest per-theater average ever for a nationwide release with $46,057.
Now that is insane. Absolutely insane. This means the target demographic of teenage boys clearly managed to rope in their moms, girlfriends and relatives into going with them, because you don’t achieve figures like that without the female dollar behind you.
Disney must be pleased as punch having locked the teenage girl and mom market down years ago with a constant stream of princesses finding their princes, but now they’ve tapped a market that previously they didn’t have much luck with: guys. Even Jack Sparrow did better with the ladies. Who’d have thought it would take Chris Evans’s well-defined abs to get the lads running into theaters?
This is clearly proof that the best marketing campaign for your movie is, in fact, another movie. Five movies, to be precise. We’ve seen Nick Fury, Agent Coulson and Tony Stark pop up all over the Marvel landscape to get this party going, and boy did those results pay off!
Early buzz for the movie was positive, and a clear release schedule meant that The Avengers made it’s way to the broadest possible audience.
But what of the possible threats to Iron Man and the gang? No, I’m not talking about Tom Hiddleston’s deliciously evil Loki; I’m talking box office competition. How far behind did The Avengers leave the other weekend contenders?
Tim Story’s Think Like A Man made around $8 million bringing its total up to a very respectable $73 million while The Hunger Games managed to hang on to the top 3 for a seventh week, making $5.7 million this weekend and moving its overall take to $380 million.
To give you some perspective on The Avengers‘s amazing take, look at The Hunger Games making 380 million in 7 weeks as opposed to The Avengers making 200 million in 3 days.
When you look at it like that the results are pretty mind- blowing. Nice work Joss!
