'Avengers' ups dollar power with $207.4M opening

[May 08, 2012]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "The Avengers" has extended its box-office superpowers with a record $207.4 million opening weekend domestically, an even bigger start than originally projected.

Final figures from distributor Disney on Monday put the film's debut $7.1 million higher than the studio had estimated a day earlier.

With a superstar cast, great reviews and glowing word of mouth from fans, "The Avengers" bounded past the previous record of $169.2 million set by last year's "Harry Potter" finale.

The Marvel Comics adaptation also has taken in $447.4 million overseas since it started rolling out in international markets a week earlier. That brings its worldwide total to $654.8 million in just 12 days.

The film drew in comic-book fans and general audiences alike, with the audience evenly split between those over and under 25, according to Disney. Teens packed theaters, couples came to see it as a date movie and parents with children made it a family outing.

"Fans, non-fans, parents, non-parents. Any kind of descriptor you can come up with, people are embracing this film," said Dave Hollis, Disney's head of distribution.

Over the same first weekend of May, 10 years earlier, "Spider-Man" rocked Hollywood with a $114.8 million debut, the first movie ever to open with more than $100 million in a single weekend.

"It was unthinkable. People thought, wow, a blockbuster film should do $100 million in its whole run, not just opening weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "The $200 million opening weekend is something I didn't think I would ever see, or something I wouldn't see until after I retired."

But since summer 2002, other blockbusters have nudged opening-weekend records higher and higher: 2006's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" with $135.6 million; 2007's "Spider-Man 3" with $151.1 million; 2008's "The Dark Knight" with $158.4 million; and finally, last summer's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2."

"The Avengers" leaped beyond the "Potter" finale with a long, shrewd buildup by Marvel Studios, which had tucked teasers for its eventual superhero ensemble tale into solo films such as "Iron Man," "Thor" and "Captain America" for years.

Directed by Joss Whedon, who has been reading "The Avengers" comics since he was a boy, the film features Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.

The sum of all of those superheroes proved more than the parts. "The Avengers" already has surpassed the worldwide box-office totals for "Iron Man," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America" in their entire runs.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "The Avengers," Disney, $207,438,708, 4,349 locations, $47,698 average, $207,438,708, one week.

2. "Think Like a Man," Sony Screen Gems, $8,106,166, 2,010 locations, $4,033 average, $73,135,600, three weeks.

3. "The Hunger Games," Lionsgate, $5,587,661, 2,794 locations, $2,000 average, $380,614,659, seven weeks.

4. "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," Sony, $5,502,482, 3,358 locations, $1,639 average, $18,665,941, two weeks.

5. "The Lucky One," Warner Bros., $5,368,115, 3,005 locations, $1,786 average, $47,775,060, three weeks.

6. "The Five-Year Engagement," Universal, $5,029,110, 2,941 locations, $1,710 average, $19,133,015, two weeks.

7. "Safe," Lionsgate, $2,677,125, 2,271 locations, $1,179 average, $13,080,883, two weeks.

8. "The Raven" Relativity Media, $2,636,780, 2,209 locations, $1,194 average, $12,176,125, two weeks.

9. "Chimpanzee," Disney, $2,484,456, 1,531 locations, $1,623 average, $23,101,889, three weeks.

10. "The Three Stooges," Fox, $1,832,333, 2,174 locations, $843 average, $39,669,015, four weeks.

11. "The Cabin in the Woods," Lionsgate, $1,564,805, 1,669 locations, $938 average, $38,018,748, four weeks.

12. "John Carter," Disney, $1,494,367, 349 locations, $4,282 average, $70,760,807, nine weeks.

13. "21 Jump Street," Sony, $1,081,100, 1,040 locations, $1,040 average, $134,015,783, eight weeks.

14. "American Reunion," Universal, $817,470, 856 locations, $955 average, $55,301,080, five weeks.

15. "Mirror Mirror," Relativity Media, $746,247, 922 locations, $809 average, $60,174,498, six weeks.

16. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," Fox Searchlight, $737,051, 27 locations, $27,298 average, $737,051, one week.

17. "Wrath of the Titans," Warner Bros., $460,190, 715 locations, $644 average, $81,619,832, six weeks.

18. "Dr. Seuss' the Lorax," Universal, $427,220, 521 locations, $820 average, $209,034,865, 10 weeks.

19. "Titanic" in 3-D, Paramount, $365,334, 333 locations, $1,097 average, $57,290,508, five weeks.

20. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," Warner Bros., $287,017, 303 locations, $947 average, $102,273,112, 13 weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com/

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

[Associated Press; By DAVID GERMAIN]

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