http://deadline.com/2015/05/avengers...ce-1201419080/
Quote:
Update, 3:30AM: During the late afternoon on Friday, given how rapidly exhibs were adding showtimes following Avengers: Age of Avengers: Age of Ultron Opens ThursdayUltron‘s sold-out time slots, the projection for heavy late night traffic prompted a number of high opening estimates for the Disney Marvel sequel. Theaters are playing the Joss Whedon film non-stop. At the Hollywood Arclight and New York City’s Regal E-Walk, there’s 43 showtimes today when you can catch the superhero sequel. AMC Burbank and Universal City Citywalk are respectively showing Ultron 35 and 32 times today with the NorthPark in Dallas, Texas boasting 29 showtimes in order to meet moviegoers’ demands.
Per late night returns, it appears as though Ultron will chalk up an estimated $85M, making it second to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2‘s first day of $91.07M and beating the first Avengers which bowed to $80.8M. All these opening figures are propped by Thursday night previews. Ultron had more showtimes than its first chapter since it kicked off earlier at 7PM vs. midnight (in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shootings, exhibs no longer launch films at midnight). Current FSS bow for Ultron is $202.6M per industry calculations, but that’s incorporating a ding from the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. That figure would put Ultron second to Avengers’ bow in the all-time B.O. annals.
In the past with some of these big fanboy film openings, there was always concern that the simultaneous release of a popular videogame franchise title would eat into a pic’s business, however, it’s been shown that films and big videogame releases complement each other, read Thor: The Dark World posted a bow of $85.7M which was higher than its first chapter ($65.7M) and wedged between its first and second frames was the $500M single day release of Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. But the anticipation is that the boxing match could very well steal guys away from Ultron starting at 9PM ET/6PM PT. While Avengers dipped 14% from Friday into Saturday, some industry estimates are seeing 20% or greater for Ultron.
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AOU:
Previews - $27.6m
Friday - $57.4m
TA1:
Previews - $18.7m
Friday - $62.1m
Looks like AOU's day business is 7% lower than Avengers 1, pointing to a more frontloaded run, as per most sequels. Could possibly open below 200m, given there's a big boxing match this weekend, but still a HUGE number
