Most weekends that feature a new Tim Burton and Johnny Depp film will usually be won at the box office on said collaboration. Unless the weekend in question is in the line of fire of Marvel and Joss Whedon’s The Avengers.
Conservative early forecasts suggest The Avengers will blow through its second weekend of release in North America with around $85 million in business. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) continue to enthrall audiences on their march toward $1 billion on global box office business.
Much like its opening $207.4 million opening that squashed the previous record, The Avengers will once again enter the record books for the best sophomore weekend of all time by eclipsing James Cameron’s Avatar by a cool $10 million. That number could rise if The Avengers gains momentum through Saturday and Sunday again from positive word-of-mouth.
Dark Shadows, however, will have to settle for debuting in the massive shadow cast by The Avengers. Burton’s latest opened Thursday at midnight with around $550,000 in business, and is pacing into Friday for a weekend tally between $30 and $35 million. Most weekends that would be enough for first place, but not this one – amazingly even if those numbers doubled.
While Dark Shadows is set up for a decent opening for Warner Bros., its first weekend will be a far cry from the $116 million Burton and Depp’s last team up Alice in Wonderland raked in for Disney in 2010.
