The Avengers didn’t beat the opening day record, but the Joss Whedon-directed superhero movie beat early expectations to gross an incredible estimated $80.517M from 4,349 theaters (2nd all-time behind last Summer’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″ – $91.071M).
As reported yesterday, an estimated $18.7M of the opening day gross came from midnights. The Avengers is now on track for at least a $175M opening weekend which would break the record set by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″ ($169.189M) and it has at least a good shot at hitting $200M for the weekend.
Overseas grosses on Friday tallied $30.3M, pushing the film’s overseas total to $334.3M. Add in the $80.5M domestic bow and The Avengers is already at $414.8M worldwide en route to $500M today. With a budget rumored at $220M, in only its first week of release The Avengers has already passed into profitability.
