Top 12 Film Industry Stories of 2012: #2
The Avengers Initiative Triumphs
By David Mumpower
January 9, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Avengers as a movie concept has been a source of curiosity for several years now. Prior to Iron Man’s debut in 2008, Marvel in combination with Paramount Pictures, the caretaker of the property at the time, announced the intention to build to a superhero combination film. Iron Man was the first triumphant step to this goal.
As strange as the statement sounds only four years later, Iron Man was far from a slam-dunk as a movie concept. The project had languished for over a decade, largely because the actor attached, Tom Cruise, never prioritized it. In a strange twist of fate, right as Cruise’s career collapsed, Marvel settled upon the perfect actor, Robert Downey Jr.
Just as was the case with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, Downey seemed destined to portray Tony Stark. Audiences agreed, ardently supporting the project. Iron Man debuted to a massive $102 million, one of the top ten opening weekends of all time up to that point. It went on to gross $318.3 million domestically with a grand total of $585.2 million worldwide. Iron Man as a brand was established. Iron Man 2 reinforced this thought process as the sequel accrued another $624 million worldwide. People love Robert Downey Jr. as Robert Stark.
The problem in making an Avengers movie is that at least half a dozen Marvel superheroes need to be featured in it. Ergo, people would spend the entire movie wondering who that long-haired gentleman with the hammer was unless he would be given an introduction. A bold tactic had to be employed.
Marvel Studios and their friends at Paramount Pictures had previously announced the superhero summer in anticipation of this. During this period, they would release Thor and Captain America movies. Prior to release, both of these new properties had their fair share of critics. Thor is a muscular demigod who flies thanks to a hammer. That’s…different. And Captain America is defined as jingoistic by the character’s name alone. How receptive would worldwide audiences be to such a superhero, particularly given recent political events?
Yes, each of these titles seemed like uncertain propositions yet both movies exceeded expectations. Thor finished with global revenue of $449.3 million while Captain America managed $368.6 million. They were two of the top 17 performers of 2011. Even better, they finished third and fifth on the list of new properties debuting in 2011. Yes, a dozen of the top 17 were sequels (or semi-sequels) to existing franchises. In terms of new characters, Thor and Captain America did quite well.
Despite the Superhero Summer being a success, there was still cause for concern as only three of the intended six superheroes had been established. Among those, the average opening weekend was $90 million, and that calculation counts Iron Man movies twice. Thor and Captain America both fell in the $65 million range. A planned fourth character, The Hulk, had been featured in two movies. The more popular of them earned a modest $263.4 million worldwide. What became clear from 2008 to 2011 is that people loved Iron Man. They were somewhere between dubious and on the fence about the other Avengers.
With these concerns at the forefront, Marvel Studios formulated a strategy for The Avengers movie. The character of Nick Fury would be utilized to tie the independent characters together. And Ed Norton would not be asked to return to the role of The Hulk. Even though his performance was better received than the all but forgotten work of Eric Bana, nobody liked Norton enough to deal with him again. This was important because team chemistry is an important component of The Avengers. Creating the same atmosphere behind the scenes was crucial to the ultimate fate of the project. Key to the group chemistry would be the leader behind the lens.
In Hollywood, there are few auteurs in the industry today more accomplished at handling a disparate cast of characters than Joss Whedon. The beloved director is so popular that actors from his shows constantly return to his later works. Such loyalty in Hollywood is rare. Even better, he had written a popular story arc for The Avengers comic book, providing his tremendous familiarity with the source material. While Whedon had never directed a movie that earned more than $25.5 million domestically, he was the clear choice to helm Marvel’s most important project.
Suffice to say that Whedon delivered in a manner that made even Christopher Nolan jealous. Actively running away from the current trend of darkness in comic book adaptations, Whedon crafted a delightful, family-friendly tale. The Avengers is a story of overpowered, flawed people (and demi-gods) joining together to save the world from…some sort of robotic alien thingies. Look, the details don’t matter.
What is important is that from the moment the first trailer aired, The Avengers was obviously going to be a blockbuster. The primary question was whether its popularity would match or possibly even exceed that of the Iron Man movies. This was a viable debate in early 2012 as three of the four main characters in the movie had produced respectable but modest results as titular leads. The other two, Black Widow and Hawkeye, were presumed to be supporting players whose presence would add little to the bottom line of the movie.
As always, Joss Whedon shocked us all. He delivered an even better than best case scenario product. In the process, he removed all doubts about whether The Avengers would be better than the sum of its parts. Early reviews gushed about the quality of the film. 92% of Rotten Tomatoes critics recommended it, a reception that surpassed the other summer comic book heavyweight, The Dark Knight Rises. And audiences would later laud The Avengers with the ultra-rare A+ Cinemascore.
By opening weekend, the question was no longer whether The Avengers would surpass the best Marvel opening to date, Iron Man 2. The only debate was by how much. Iron Man 2 had debuted to $128.1 million. The Avengers earned $80.8 million on its first day, the second best single day of box office in history. The single day amount also exceeded the opening weekends of both Hulk movies as well as Thor and Captain America. The Avengers was in rarefied box office air.
Another $69.6 million on day two gave The Avengers more box office in two days than Iron Man 2 earned in three. In fact, the first two days of The Avengers represented the fifth largest opening weekend of all time to that point…with another day to go. The massive opening weekend surprise, The Hunger Games, another of our Top Film Industry Stories of the year, was effectively matched by The Avengers after only two days.
As everyone knows by now, The Avengers went on to shatter the opening weekend box office record, becoming the seventh movie in the 2000s to do so. The Marvel action flick grossed an incomprehensible $207.4 million in three days, breaking the previous record by a whopping 23%. In the process, it also became the quickest movie to $200 million, a record that will stand for a long time. The Avengers would also later become the fastest movie to $300 million (9 days), $400 million (14 days) and $500 million (23 days).
One other footnote about this astounding pace is that The Avengers earned roughly as much in two weeks as The Hunger Games, currently the 13th largest blockbuster of all time, managed during its entire domestic run. Similarly, prior to 2012, box office analysts universally agreed that The Dark Knight Rises would be the number one movie of 2012. Instead, The Avengers had already beaten the Batman’s movie eventual take of $448.1 million by its 17th day in release. The ungodly pace of The Avengers is almost impossible to comprehend.
In addition to earning the best opening weekend of all time, The Avengers would also become the third largest film ever, domestically as well as internationally. The superhero fun-fest reached what had previously been known as James Cameron territory. It was the third film to earn $600 million domestically as well as $1.5 billion worldwide. The only two other titles to accomplish such feats are Cameron’s masterpieces, Avatar and Titanic.
While breaking the opening weekend box office record is far from a rare feat (this is the seventh time we have chronicled such a feat in our Best Film Industry Stories), The Avengers did so in historic fashion. Its $207.4 million in three days seems like a record that will not be broken for several years, possibly not until the debut of Star Wars 7 in 2015.
In addition, only one other movie has crossed the $500 million barrier domestically. And The Avengers beat that title, The Dark Knight, by roughly $90 million. Other than Avatar, there is no other movie since the inception of our site whose performance is as extraordinary as The Avengers. It has staked a strong claim as the seminal movie of our generation.