We all knew from the tracking reports that The Avengers would be a big movie, but the film has actually been insanely successful.
Again, there were strong signs everywhere. It already made a fortune overseas before it came out in the States, the Marvel movie marathon that hit theaters the night before The Avengers opened sold out a month in advance, but now reports confirm that The Avengers is actually the #3 biggest movie of all time.
Boxofficemojo.com reports that the Avengers “accounted for over half of May 2012 grosses,” and it stood strong against newcomers like Battleship (which ultimately sank). It also had the biggest opening weekend in history, and made $500 million domestically, beating Avatar’s record, which took 32 days to make half a billion. (Not to mention Robert Downey Jr. has a piece of the Avengers and stands to make $50 million or more from it).
It also even made a few bucks for John Carter when it played on a double bill with The Avengers at a few of the last remaining drive-ins.
As noted above, The Avengers made $1.331 billion world-wide before it hit the one month mark on June 4, and as Deadline confirmed, The Avengers even made $100 million its second weekend, which beat out Avatar’s $75 million second weekend. The top two films of all time are both James Cameron flicks, Avatar, which made $2.8 billion, and Titanic, which made $1.8 billion.
So the real question is will The Avengers become the #1 grosser of all time? Yes, $2.8 billion’s a pretty tough number to beat, but it will also be interesting to see how it’s going to do on home video, where it’s guaranteed to make another fortune.
This also means The Dark Knight’s got its work cut out for it, because it will almost certainly be compared to The Avengers at the box office. The Dark Knight will definitely do enormous business, but The Avengers is definitely giving Batman a run for his money.
