Shop Talk: The Avengers

By David Mumpower

May 16, 2012

They're nervous and their socks are too loose.

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We know from analyzing box office history what the percentage takes are of films in release after their 12th day in release. The Dark Knight had earned $333.93 million at this point its release, an amount representing 62.6% of its final take of $533.35 million. In other words, The Dark Knight had “only” $200 million left in the tank after day 12. If The Avengers holds that same pace, it would wind up with a final domestic take (warning: WOW!!! number ahead) of $622.2 million. The measurement will not work for Avatar and Titanic since at this point in their release pattern, they were only at $250.42 million and $104.38 million, respectively.

There are other titles we can use as models, though. Iron Man 2, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Star Trek are all early to mid-May releases that will fit the pattern well enough. I am loathe to use older titles for modern box office as a rule, but Spider-Man is otherwise a fairly good fit in terms of scale and release. So, I’ll make an exception here. Its 12-day take represented only 57.7% of its final take. The first Iron Man film is at 58.1% while the sequel is (understandably) much lower at 69.9%. Even though Star Trek is much smaller in scale (The Avengers is already $130 million ahead of its domestic total), I like the other similarities in that both films were the subject of glowing critical praise and word of mouth. It was at 60.0% at this point in release.




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Using the above delimiters, what we can conclude is that the worst case scenario for The Avengers is the Iron Man 2 model of 69.9%, which would represent a $557.2 million final box office total. Working backward, the Star Trek model would signify $649.1 million, over $25 million better than The Dark Knight model above. The best case scenario models would be Iron Man ($670.3 million) or Spider-Man ($675 million). Yes, there is a legitimate possibility that Joss Whedon’s second directorial effort, The Avengers, earns $650 million more than his first one, Serenity. The best movie of 2005 earned $25.5 million domestically. I struggle to find scenarios where The Avengers tops out under $550 million. At this moment, the line of demarcation appears to be $625 million, which would make it not only the number three film of all time but also the second best performer in initial release.

At the start of the year, if anyone had tried to tell you that The Hunger Games and The Avengers would earn a combined billion dollars domestically, you would have thought they were nuts. This is exactly what is going to happen, though. 2012 box office is absolutely incendiary thus far.


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