Avengers #1,000,000,000

Now will Disney buy Hulk shirt???

That's right. It was inevitable. The Avengers broke ONE BILLION dollars. Check it out over at www.boxofficemojo.com.
So, yeah, those guys over at Disney that paid $4,000,000,000 for Marvel awhile back now look like geniuses. Sure, Disney's not going to see all of that cash but I'm sure Disney is seeing sequel after sequel roll of the assembly line at this point. 

See, make the fanboys happy and the whole world will follow. It's really not a difficult concept.

Avengers Smash Loki, Chitauri, and the Box Office!

Well, the Avengers started the summer movie season out with a bang, grossing $207 million dollars in the opening weekend. That's an all time record, if you're keeping track. Yep. Better than Harry Potter or Twilight (that's actually quite hard to believe). And that's just the opening weekend!

Just imagine a line like this that's about 200,000 people long.

According to www.boxofficemojo.com the movie has grossed over $600 million worldwide through last weekend. Apparently it was released earlier in foreign countries... What's up with that? Not sure, but Avengers is sure to make the top ten list of the highest grossing movies of all time.

Which begs the question... can Dark Knight match this movie at the box office? What about Spidey? Or will the summer start out with its biggest hit and see declining box offices from there?

Oh Captain, My Captain

I know this is late coming but I just stumbled across the news article about this. Before the Captain America: The First Avenger film was released there was wild speculation that "America" or "Captain America" was going to be dropped from the film's title internationally. See, we Americans aren't that popular abroad, the theory goes, so if the film had "American" in its title it wouldn't do well oversees.

Well, as it turns out, that's a bunch of whooie. First, the film starred a wide range of European personalities in the Howling Commandos (true to the comics). Secondly, it ending up grossing $189 million oversees. While that's not great it isn't a disaster either. Believe it or not, it was more successful in Brazil and Mexico. Go figure.

Anyway, the film WAS released under an alternate title in just THREE countries (as far as I can tell it wasn't released in China at all... go figure) - Russia, Ukraine, and South Korea. In Russia it made nearly $9 million (not bad), in South Korea it did nearly $4 million (not bad... it is South Korea), and in the Ukraine it didn't even make $1 million (but then again, what do you expect from Ukraine?). I wonder how much different the box offices from these three countries would have been if the film had been released under its full title? I understand the logic in Russia and I guess I can extend that to the Ukrain... but why South Korea? North Korea - sure - but South Korea? I thought they liked us? Hmmm...

Samuel L. Jackson Vs. Stan Lee - Box Office Wars

Recently, Guinness World Records proclaims Samuel L. Jackson the highest-grossing actor ever with a total box office of $7.2 billion.

I looked this up at http://www.the-numbers.com/people/SLJAC.php and their numbers don't match up. Their domestic box office total is about $5 billion and international box office almost $10 billion. That's for over 55 films, giving him an average domestic gross of just over $60 million per picture and that's including the three Star Wars prequel movies.

Compare this to Stan Lee at http://www.the-numbers.com/people/0SLEE.php. Stan Lee has been in seventeen films for a total domestic box office gross of $3 billion (over $6 billion internationally). Stan Lee's average box office gross domestically is over $191 million. 

Of the two, I'd take Stan Lee's record over Samuel L. Jackson's any day.

Stan Lee - 1

Samuel L. Jackson - 0

Creature? What Creature? I Don't See a Creature!

Creature, a movie released just the other weekend on over 1,500 screens, has set a new distinction. It's  the lowest grossing film per screen on its opening weekend. How low? It only made $220 per screen! For a film that cost somewhere around $3,000,000 to make that's got to be a disappointment!

   

America Beats England

Don't mess with a WWII vet...

I don't know why I'm so fascinated with the Harry Potter box office, but I am. Captain America SOUNDLY trounced Harry Potter this weekend which made me happy but surprised me a bit as well.

Cap came in with a solid $65 million compared to Harry's $47 million. What's amazing is that this represents a 72% crop in Harry's second weekend! That's a BIG drop (typical is 50%) especially when you consider the strong reviews that Harry 7.2 got.

1LR predicts that Cap will have some legs - it had a strong opening but a good word of mouth campaign is underway that should sustain interest.

So, as is the theme of history, America shows England who's the boss once again!

Even Gringotts Can't Hold All That Loot

The Harry Potter film franchise is now the all-time high grossing film franchise, passing Star Wars (the only two film franchise that have made over $2 billion). Maybe Star Wars will retake it's throne when the 3D versions of the films are released but HPatDH: P2 keeps churning out the numbers. So far, in one week it has earned $640,000,000 worldwide! IN ONE WEEK! This film will smash one billion (as predicted)... the only question is how much will it make in the end?

Harry Potter and the Outstanding Box Office

As predicted by 1LR, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 has smashed the all time opening weekend numbers. With $25 million in midnight ticket sales alone, the $168.6 million in opening weekend ticket sales topped the Dark Knight's previous record.

Check out the news article: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3257593436505428001

I believe that this film will break one billion worldwide before it's all said and done. This film has an unprecedented 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the fans rated it at an extremely high 93%. With numbers like that, this film will have some serious legs. When will Hollywood learn? Geeks rule the world. Make the geeks happy and everything will be okay!

They have a good reason to smile!