Box Office: 'Avengers: Infinity War' To Record $106M Friday

It will not have much in the way of "big" competition until Deadpool 2 in three weeks. But this is just the beginning of a new Twilight Saga sequel as opposed to even a more frontloaded MCU flick. Most of the signs point to a "normal" top-tier MCU multiplier. Yes, we can still look at a 2.5x weekend multiplier, with almost every MCU flick (even Iron Man 3, which everyone now likes to put on the bag) Avengers: Age of Ultron ($ 191 million from an $ 84m Friday) and Captain America: Civil War ($ 179m / $ 75m).

Yes, that would be a $ 265 million debut weekend, even above the inflation-adjusted $ 262m launch for The Force Awakens. Infinity War has an A CinemaScore rating and a deluge of most positive media coverage. Heck, if it plays like the last two MCU team-ups, we're still looking at a Fri-Sun debut of $ 241- $ 253m, which would just be over $ / $ 248m launch of Star Wars 7. There is no Even a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II-ish multiplier ($ 169 million after $ 91m opening day) gives Avengers a $ 197m opening weekend.

As long as we've become accustomed to these MCU openings over the last six years, it really is a remarkable feat of top-tier consistency. Thor: Ragnarok earned $ 315 million domestic / $ 853m worldwide last November and we all are essentially shrugged. This was partially fueled by a somewhat misleading "it all ends here" marketing campaign, and that could cause (very minor) problems down the line, but folks still showed up and often liked what they saw. I do not think Avengers 4 has to deal with a Matrix Revolutions level, or maybe even a Mockingjay part 2 downturn.

I'll go into the world's opening weekend record (Fate of the Furious $ 542 million launch) when those numbers come in, although it has $ 284.5m worldwide so far. We can talk about the long-term domestic play when we see how the frontloaded the "everyone vs. Thanos' flick turns out to be. But Avengers: The Infinity War has crushed the competition (save for Black Panther, which rose from 4% to last Friday) and snagged (by far) the largest "pure Friday" gross of all time. So, yes, this is a monster triumph and one hell of a start to the 2018 summer movie season.