The Avengers Makes $20 Million At Midnight Showings, But Can't Beat Harry Potter

The Avengers is clearly off to an incredible box office weekend,
with a head start internationally that already gives it $281 million in
the bank, and a midnight opening last night that sets it up for a very,
very big weekend. Though it didn't do quite well enough to unseat the
midnight box office champion Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which earned $43.5 million from midnights alone, The Avengers notched somewhere between $18 and $20 million last night at North American theaters.

Those numbers may not be enough to beat the Twilights and Harry Potters of the world, but they're way ahead of other landmarks in the Marvel franchise-- Thor debuted at midnight to $3.25 million on its way to $65 million weekend last summer, Captain America got $4 million from midnight screenings a few months later as part of another $65 million opening, and Iron Man 2 made $7.5 million of its $128 million opening from midnights. The Avengers
is going to blow past all of those opening weekends-- current estimates
at Deadline have it making $160 million in the States this weekend,
which would put it only behind that pesky Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for the best opening weekend of all time.