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Hey, did anything interesting open in theaters this weekend?

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron starts off with a ridiculous $84.5 million on Friday, replacing the first film as the second best single day of all time (the record of course still belongs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with $91 million), and earning a 4.5% increase from the $80.5 million first day of Avengers.

As you probably remember, Avengers was the first film to earn over $200 million in its opening weekend, taking in $207.4 million. That meant a 2.56 weekend multiplier (weekend figure divided by Friday earnings). Should Age of Ultron duplicate that, it’s a $216.9 million weekend.

What’s interesting to note is while it’s a modest increase in box office from first movie to second movie, Thursday night earnings (counted in Friday numbers, yes, even the 7 p.m. showings of Age of Ultron) were a bigger chunk of here. The Avengers earned $18.7 million on Thursday, while Age of Ultron took in $27.6 million. This actually leads us to some questions when discussing this opening. Is it a sign that the novelty of “let’s put all the superheroes in one movie” has worn off? Does the big increase in Thursday showings mean that the franchise has succeeded in expanding its audience and they will make up for it over the rest of the weekend? Does something like the Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao fight actually impact box office? (No to that one.)

With virtually non-stop showings all day and an ever increasing emphasis on getting the hardcore fans out opening weekend, I’m going to give Age of Ultron a slight bump in the multiplier department. If you take out the Friday number from The Avengers, Saturday saw a modest increase. With a much higher percentage of the Friday box office coming on Thursday for the sequel, a similar increase would actually be bad news. It should come in somewhat higher, so Age of Ultron breaks its own opening weekend record with a weekend of $219.7 million.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Avengers: Age of Ultron	219.7
2	Furious 7	7.6
3	Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2	7.1
4	The Age of Adaline	5.8
5	Home	3.6
6	Cinderella	2.8
7	Unfriended	2.2
8	Ex Machina	2.1
9	The Longest Ride	1.8
10	The Woman in Gold	1.6