Your only valid competetion argument is Potter and Captain America. Green Lantern was a total dud, it's failure had nothing to do with Transformers, it was cause the movie sucked. Pirates and Hangover had two different audiences, Pirates is family entertainment, Hangover was an R-rated comedy.
Never said it's failure had all that much to do with TF(though it didn't help). I very clearly said that the studios consciously released their bigger summer quarter releases very close to each other. In that case it was a week apart. One look at GL's budget will tell you all you need to know about how big that film was considered to be(it cost much more than TF).
Intended audience can only shield a film so much in light of a big zeitgeist film. For example, if Avengers is PG13(?), and Dragon Tattoo is restricted, and Tattoo comes out the same day, you would have to be pretty dense to thing there won't be any carry over with audience draw. Hangover was summer fun and the line ups were filled with many a teen and many a dates(among others). Pirates lines were filled with many a teen and many a dates....oh and kids. Summer fun is Summer fun.
First off, Marvel has owned the first weekend in May for a decade now, I don't know why you said "as of late". Second, Avengers dealt with and demolished three movies studios had high hopes for.
I said as of late because, these past few years may has been pretty exclusively theirs. As opposed to the years when Spidey would battle Matrix and Pirates and Shrek weeks of each other. This and 2008's may have been a joke.
WB that they'd strike gold again with Dark Shadows like they did with Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, they forgot Tim Burton's hits are based on well known properties like Alice and Charlie, Dark Shadows was a cult property and if the vampire doesn't sparkle, the teen girls aren't interested.
Yea, they threw what they thought was a heavy hitter, they were wrong this time, like I said. In another world they would have thrown a real hit at Avengers and who knows what would have happened.
I really do believe that if MIB3 opened in Dark Shadows spot Avengers could've beaten it. I really don't think Will Smith has the box office juice he once did, Hancock opened to $62 million 4 years ago and the last Men in Black movie opened 10 years ago. I can see it opening around the same numbers as Hancock at best. I mean is anyone really interested in seeing a new Men in Black? I see it opening big enough to beat Avengers this weekend, but that's only because Avengers is going to be in it's 4 week of release.
Unless MIB opens over 100 mill then it's a safe bet it wouldn't have beat avengers. Like I said, this May has been a bust. Still a film opening over 80 mill may have taken away from some of Avengers take.
Yes, I agree, no one really "complained" about TDK's lack of comp. I've already stated in this thread that TDKR faces a much different summer than TDK did. For that reason among others, it's numbers will be interesting. (2008 was a bust imo).
As for Joe. I'm happy for two reasons. Not every film can have a great date in the middle of the summer(like Avengers). Joe now has a real chance to make some money and not have to deal with subsequent crap. And two, The Rock does well in the Spring. Joe will be making Fast Five money.
I'm very curious why they didn't get the Director of Step Up 3D to shoot that film natively though. Kinda STUPID imo.