Marvel’s The Avengers just came on early tracking this morning “incredibly strong” exactly as Hollywood thought it would, my industry sources are telling me. This is the first Marvel film to be marketed and distributed by Disney so this is great news for the studio. The numbers tell the story: it has 23% ‘First Choice’ and 62% ‘Definite Interest for all audiences – incredibly high among men, and solid among females. With so many well known characters coming together for the first time in this film, the movie’s opening on May 4th for the official summer season start in North America will be an event. As a result, not only will this type of action film normally skew young and older male, but the early tracking is looking strong as a three- and possibly four-quadrant movie, too. One expert provided me with a box office guesstimate that this assembly of Marvel superheroes should open during its 3-day non-holiday weekend to $100+M domestic. That would make the film Marvel’s biggest non-sequel opening, and its highest-grossing since Iron Man 2 ($128M opening weekend which ultimately made $312.4M domestic/$311.5M international for $623.9M worldwide). Right now Disney and theatre owners are adding screens every day for the release whose online pre-sales of tickets are already selling out. Midnight show business is expected to be phenomenal. Exactly how much the studio can gross for the first weekend depends on how many screenings each theater can pack into 72 hours by finding enough staff willing to work the extra hours and keep the pic running continuously.
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