Who saw this coming? People certainly expected a big weekend for Marvel’s big release, which has been in the making for about five years, but it’s hard to believe that it smashed the record by this big of an amount.

The amount? $30 million. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was the previous record holder, with about $169 million. The Avengers friggin’ Hulked out and crushed that. Then smashed it again.

Although it didn’t win the day one record of $91 million it did have an impressive $80 million. The question now becomes whether the excellent word of mouth – seriously, ask your friends what they thought and you’ll likely get positive remarks – can push this to one billion. Hell, it could rake it in for the next five weeks and, maybe, challenge Avatar.

But that may be too hard for this film. It’s likely to finish in the top seven highest-grossing films of all time, however. [Box Office Mojo]

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