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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.

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