As anybody with a passing interest in films could tell you, box office grosses are king when it comes to films. They become more important every year, getting to the point that studios count their money before the first reel is unspooled. Hits are deemed hits and flops called flops based solely on prerelease tracking. And what this prerelease tracking is telling us about The Avengers is that it should have the biggest opening of the year, and the biggest opening for a comic book film since 2008.
The Hollywood Reporter states that the Joss Whedon directed film is in line for a opening weekend in excess of $150 million, and that it is tracking better than The Hunger Games did this year (the film opened at $152.5 million), and as good if not better than 2008’s The Dark Knight, which opened at a then-record $158.4 million weekend.
There are a number of questions to ask. One, is there any possibility of the film overtake Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2‘s record $170 million opening weekend. Two, if it does break the record, how long will the film hold it? I’d say, not much farther than July 20, 2012, as that’s when the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (and eagerly awaited sequel to The Dark Knight), The Dark Knight Rises, opens. Third, will it have the same kind of legs The Dark Knight had, as that film earned enough in its theatrical run ($533,345, 358) to garner a spot at #3 on the all-time grosses chart. I guess we’ll see.
