Quigley

According to Exhibitor Relations: $27.6M domestic, $287.3M int'l, $314.9M worldwide. That means $32M overseas on Thursday. Huge and a bit more with the Avengers' first Monday (April 30, 2012). $200M+ OS weekend is possible. The late-night showings from US and Canada are also really good. Ever since they changed them from Friday midnight to Thursday night showings, the biggest gross was $25.3M from Catching Fire. Age of Ultron not only out-grossed that but almost doubled Iron Man 3's and Furious 7's late-night gross. Comparison with Avengers is not very meaningful but beating it by ~$9M is a good sign.

Early showings have lost its magic because they used to be at midnight/3am which added an element of special-ness. Now it's just a standard 7pm/10pm showing and I thikn that's the reason why recently Thursday showings haven't surpassed $25M even for big openings like Mockingjay and Furious 7 and Iron Man 3.

Thursday night previews should stop counting as part of the weekend.

Mind-bending thought: What if Age of Ultron became the first film in history to gross more than $200M on two consecutive weekends overseas?

That last sentence: it better erupt or it's doomed.

Basically the date change is a slaughter for Tomorrowland. Although anything above $700M will be good for that film and it doesn't need China to achieve it.

What about competition from domestic films?

I predicted $280M for China.

US and Canada: $630M Outside: $1120M (incl. $280M in China) Worldwide total: $1750M

It is very low compared to Avengers first OS Monday but that was April 30, 2012, i.e. the day before May Day, which is a public holiday in many countries. Therefore expect Age of Ultron to make similar numbers (30M+) on Thursday (the eve of May Day) hopefully, before a monster weekend. EDIT: In fact, Avengers made ~$20M on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 (a non-holiday during its first OS week) which is on par with Age of Ultron's $19M Monday. Nothing to worry about.

BoM and Deadline said they were not yet 100% sure that it broke the record. Do we know now? Are actuals available?

I'm still confused. Records are reported in local currency, so which film earned more on OW?

I don't think an increase on day 2 should be considered disappointing. By Sunday, we'll know how much it's made but I think it's bound to surpass Avengers and probably IM3 (in total gross) so we couldn't ask for much else anyway. If it tops Intertsellar and Frozen that would be great but I'll be satisfied with less.

FF7 is headed for ~60% drop from last weekend, i.e. around $36M. Don't think it can reach $400M. I think all other OS markets will add up to about $35M so this weekend will be $68-74M.

There is not even a 1% chance that FF7 will fall short of $1B OS. But calm down, you shouldn't be upset. If China was as big in 2011 as it is today, then FF7 wouldn't stand a chance against DH2. Sadly the worldwide chart will look nothing like it looks today in 3-4 years. And that's mainly because of China. Comparisons with the pre-3D pre-China years will be pointless and meaningless unless someone comes up with a standardisation method.

Never say never. TA1 was also essentially a sequel.

Furious 7 opened in Taiwan on a Wednesday before a holiday weekend. Dunno if that boosted OD grosses.

AoU opened on a non-holiday Wednesday but still grossed more than Avengers which opened on a holiday Wednesday. Therefore AoU won't be as front-loaded.

Actually all these records are in local currency. It may well be true that Furious 7 hasn't made $15M in Indonesia yet (I have no idea what the gross is in dollars).

Actually the film that came closest to $1B worldwide was The Dark Knight, which was stuck at $997M and then WB re-released it. Something no one ever talks about although it's actually scandalous cuz BOM doesn't indicate this re-release (it only mentions the re-release in 2012).

Furious 7's success is largely due to China. It may well be possible that Furious 7 isn't an outlier but the norm from now on. Who knows?

So it will likely be ahead of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (worldwide) by Sunday.

Guys calm down. TA2 has the May Day holiday in many countries and it will be huge anyway.

ScreenDaily has it at $959M through Wednesday, meaning it made $65-67M in non-China OS markets. Thr BOM number indicates it made $84-85M in non-China OS markets by Friday. Given that SD's numbers are correct, the BOM srems a bit too low.

Furious 7 might have reached $1 billion by Thursday. BOM has it at $1B already but tjat includes an OS gross of $735M as of Friday. I think it should be more.