Needless to say, Iron Man 3 took first place at the domestic box office this weekend, the first official weekend of the Summer season. For almost any other film, that would be quite an achievement, but Iron Man 3's greatest success came in just how much it grossed: its $174.1 million marks the second-highest weekend gross in history, behind only last year's The Avengers. Its improvement over Iron Man 2's opening ($128.1 million) is remarkable, especially considering the tendency of 'threequels' to underperform compared to their predecessors, particularly when their predecessors are not very well-regarded (as is the case with Iron Man 2). Of course, after The Avengers, and Iron Man's prominent role in that film, Iron Man 3 was pretty much a sequel to that, so a strong performance was certainly expected, but even this is on the higher end of expectations. Add in its exceptionally good international performance thus far, and Iron Man 3 is already at over $678 million worldwide.
Despite Iron Man 3 selling over 80% of tickets Friday-Sunday, the other films on release didn't fare too badly. In second place, last weekend's No. 1 Pain and Gain lost over 62% of its gross, although Mud's expansion into well over 500 theatres ensured that it climbed from 11 to 7. Oz the Great and Powerful did even better, losing over a quarter of its screens and yet gaining over 16% over last weekend. Openers The Iceman (30) and What Maisie Knew (57) both posted per-theatre averages of more than $21k, although other new releases Love Is All You Need, Something in the Air, Post Tenebras Lux and Kiss of the Damned were comparatively disappointing.
The Winner / Highest Opener / Top Per-Theatre Average: Iron Man 3 ($174,144,585 (second highest in history) / $40,946 (third highest of year so far))
Head over to Box Office Mojo for all the stats.
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