There seems to be little doubt that Avengers: Infinity War will completely blow the competition out of the water by the time the superhero epic arrives in theaters. The question that everybody does seem to be asking is how large this splash is going to be. Early tracking suggests that the movie is looking at a $200 million-plus opening weekend, which is actually a conservative number. That makes it one of the biggest openings ever, but not the biggest. That title still belongs to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but a new report suggests that might not be the case for much longer.
BoxOffice Pro is estimating that Avengers: Infinity War will have a domestic opening weekend gross of $235 million -- $255 million. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has the biggest opening weekend ever with $247.97 million and it's "increasingly possible" that the superhero movie will reach this number, according to BoxOffice. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a titan through and through, propelled by the fact that it was, well, Star Wars. Now it's time to see if someone can steal that crown.
A few factors have caused the estimation to increase over the last few weeks. For one thing, Infinity War has practically rewritten the book on pre-sale tickets. Fandango reported that Infinity War along had sold more tickets than the last seven MCU films combined (all the way to 2015's Ant-Man) had at that same point in time. Another strong indicator of the blockbusters performance is the amount of social media activity surrounding it. Infinity War's Twitter activity is performing 129% higher than Captain America: Civil War and 52% higher than Avengers: Age of Ultron. People are excited about this movie is perhaps the biggest understatement.
It looks like we could be looking at the new biggest opening weekend of all time. However, the more interesting question is how long will Infinity War be able to keep that up. BoxOffice is tracking a domestic total gross of $565 million -- $650 million. That's a really good run, and it'll be interesting to see how the long game plays out. It has a lot of competition arriving just a few weeks after its debut that will eat up audience attention. Part of the reason Black Panther has had such an amazing run is that it didn't have much competition in those first few weeks. I have a feeling that Infinity War is aiming for a huge first two weeks worldwide and that will serve as the bulk of its income as more blockbusters hit theaters.
Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018, and might be the highest grossing movie ever until Avengers 4 one year later.
