Weekend Box Office: The Avengers breaks some records, shatters others, crushes still more
Another week, another assortment of records for The Avengers, which once again dominated the box office with $103.2 million, over three times more money than the runner up. Though it dropped about 50% from opening weekend—a standard dip for blockbusters, which can usually expect to lose more—The Avengers had the best second-week total ever (way ahead of Avatar’s $75.6 million) and has already made enough money domestically ($373.2 million) to put it 18th of all time. To put it in perspective, that’s $371.9 million more than the 1994 big-screen version of Car 54, Where Are You?, which boasted its own all-star cast of Avengers in David Johansen, John C. McGinley, Fran Drescher, and Nipsy Russell. It also topped the $1 billion mark worldwide, putting it just behind Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland—for the time being, anyway—for Top 10 status. Hey, and speaking of Tim Burton, Dark Shadows, his latest collaboration with Johnny Depp, will likely fall well short of those titanic numbers—and also well short of profitability. A $28.8 million opening would have been awesome for Car 54, Where Are You?—and the Damon Wayans superhero parody Blankman, for that matter—but by today’s summer blockbuster standards, it’s disastrous, especially when set against an elephantine $150 million budget.
In limited release, the big story continues to be The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which has become a classic piece of counterprogramming. As the young people clamor to see The Avengers and Dark Shadows, their parents and grandparents have quietly shuffled up the ramp and made a burgeoning hit out of it. At $14,888 per screen on 178 screens, Marigold topped all but The Avengers in per screen average and even slipped into the #8 spot with $2.65 million. The little-advertised Eva Mendes vehicle Girl In Progress also performed respectably, with $4,200 per screen on 322 screens, though its lack of critical support signals an early exit. Meanwhile, the horror film The Road ($1,225 per screen) and the war comedy Where Do We Go Now? ($1,864 per screen) barely registered.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.