to make the first weekend of the summer even more exciting, everyone is waiting with bated breath to see if Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Age of Ultron will set a brand-new opening record, surpassing the one set by Marvel’s The Avengers in May 2012. Whether or not that will happen is still up in the air.
After grossing $27.6 million in Thursday previews, the Marvel Studios sequel has reported an estimated $84.5 million for its opening day (including those previews), the second-biggest single day at the domestic box office ever after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which opened with $91 million in the summer of 2011.
The original The Avengers took in $80.8 million its opening Friday on its way to $207 million opening weekend, a multiplier of 2.56, although one has to expect the sequel will be more front loaded with more screenings and money grossed on Thursday. In fact, the Thursday previews make up a much larger percentage of the opening day for the sequel, about 33% compared to the 22% of the first movie’s opening day that was grossed on Thursday.
There’s also the issue of a number of events this weekend, including the Kentucky Derby later today and the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight tonight, which is already predicted to one of the most viewed box matches in decades which could cut off Age of Ultron‘s important Saturday night viewership.
Conservatively, the sequel could end up just below the opening for The Avengers but with a similar multiplier it would end up just above with between $212 and 215 million. Saturday will be a big day for the movie with families with kids going to see the film and we’ll have to see how far Age of Ultron ends up ahead of The Avengers’ first Saturday of $69.6 million.
Internationally, the movie added another $53 million yesterday, down just 17% from its opening Friday for an overseas total of $340 million and $425 million globally. We’ll known in another week or so whether Age of Ultron is able to beat Furious 7‘s record-setting run to a billion worldwide. It should more than halfway there by Sunday.
