Marvel films, with their exhilarating pace and snappy rhythm, tend to have a relatively short theatrical staying power.
As such, The Avengers does not possess the kind of long-term box-office endurance seen in films like Inception, making its first-weekend performance especially critical.
Perhaps for a film like this, an explosive opening week was destined to set a new record.
And when Friday came to an end, the front pages of every major North American media outlet were dominated by one headline: The Avengers had surpassed one hundred million dollars in single-day box office revenue.
"The Avengers explodes out of the gate, shattering opening-day box office records."
"In the early hours of the morning, The Avengers officially entered the North American summer season. Its midnight screenings brought in 19.7 million dollars, breaking the midnight box office record for superhero films.
After that, the film surged forward uncontrollably. On Friday, theater attendance across the board more than tripled compared to the same period the previous week.
And The Avengers did not disappoint. Reporters have just confirmed the official figures: with a staggering 103.26 million dollars in revenue, The Avengers successfully broke the North American single-day box office record previously set by Gilbert himself."
"In three theaters near New Orleans, dozens of viewers began arriving one after another starting at ten in the morning. Fifteen minutes later, each theater had already welcomed over a hundred people.
According to private theater owner Doyle, they were busy from morning until night with no time to rest, not even enough time to eat lunch—the fans were simply too enthusiastic."
"Reporters learned from both the AMG theater chain and the Regal chain that they had freed up as many screens as possible to give The Avengers maximum showings, yet they still could not satisfy the overwhelming demand from audiences."
"The Avengers not only set a single-day box office record, but also a single-day attendance record. Frenzied fans packed the theaters to the point of suffocation.
Even more astonishing were the merchandise stores, which looked as though they had been swept by bandits—every store selling The Avengers merchandise was completely 'wiped out.'"
"At a Texas border checkpoint, authorities uncovered a case of smuggled counterfeit merchandise. The shipment contained thousands of pirated items, nearly all related to The Avengers.
It is reported that these products were manufactured in a factory owned by Caris, Mexico's third-largest drug lord, and were intended to be sold in the United States through established drug-smuggling channels."
Drug traffickers abandoning drugs to produce pirated merchandise was simply unbelievable.
Yet when one looked at The Avengers' enormous box office returns and explosive merchandise sales, it suddenly did not seem so strange. Every one of Gilbert's films had always been a hotspot for counterfeit goods—after all, his movies were just too popular.
Making pirated merchandise was actually more profitable than drug trafficking, with far lower risks—a truly outrageous profiteering business.
As for the film's massive success, both Gilbert and Marvel Studios' executives had already prepared themselves mentally. After all, they had poured an extraordinary amount of effort into this movie.
The scale of the film's promotion could be described as immense. From the very start of production to its release, discussions and topics never ceased.
Secondly, Marvel Studios had spent more than a decade preparing for this franchise plan. In just a few short years, from Iron Man to Thor, Marvel superheroes had appeared frequently on the big screen.
And finally, The Avengers, personally directed by Gilbert, brought all the superheroes together, unleashing an almost unbelievable amount of energy.
With its outstanding quality, exhilarating experience, and superb big-screen entertainment value, this was exactly the kind of film that always thrived during the summer season.
Those countless people who had been eagerly waiting for Gilbert's The Avengers to fail were disappointed. If The Avengers had failed, even someone as powerful as Gilbert would have suffered a tremendous blow.
But unfortunately for them, The Avengers succeeded and not only that, it became the first film in history to surpass one hundred million dollars in single-day box office revenue.
If a film like this could be called a failure, then all other films should be labeled catastrophic failures—utter and complete disasters.
In the Santa Monica beachside villa district of Los Angeles stood the home of David Ellison.
His new girlfriend, Alice Eve, returned from the beach wearing a sexy bikini and saw David Ellison sitting under the veranda, holding a cup of Chinese tea and staring blankly into space.
"Darling, what are you thinking about?"
Alice Eve wrapped her arms around David Ellison's neck, her alluring figure subtly tempting him.
But unlike his usual self, who would have immediately responded with interest, David Ellison showed none at all. His eyes were vacant, his lips murmuring unconsciously.
"He broke the record again… he broke the record again… he broke the record again…"
Alice Eve froze for a moment. Puzzled about what record he was talking about, she then noticed the newspaper on the table. The front-page headline was the news of The Avengers surpassing one hundred million dollars in a single day.
This was not the final box office figure, nor even the opening weekend total—it was just the opening day.
That exaggerated number felt like a massive mountain pressing down on David Ellison's heart.
Ever since he entered Hollywood, he had been listening to Gilbert's legend, watching him dominate the film market with an unstoppable presence.
Eventually, David Ellison had grown tired of it. He wanted to end this tedious myth—Hollywood, in his view, should have a new ruler.
But after all these years, Gilbert was still firmly seated on the throne, his position more secure than ever, without even a single challenger in sight. And as for David Ellison, he was still being kept at arm's length by Hollywood's mainstream circles.
This summer, Skydance had two films lined up. One was Transformers 3, directed by Michael Bay, the studio's flagship franchise.
The other was the drama The Help, starring rising Hollywood star Emma Stone, alongside Jessica Chastain and Viola Davis.
However, Sky Dance Studios' main focus is still on Transformers 3. After all, the studio's profitability relies entirely on it.
Of course, David Ellison also knows his own limits and did not take his studio's flagship series to collide head-on with The Avengers.
Obviously, after last year's crushing defeat, he also realized that directly competing with Gilbert during the summer blockbuster season was extremely unwise.
Judging from the current results, this is indeed the case.
By nighttime, the final audience of The Avengers had left the theaters, but Marvel Studios and Disney still did not relax.
Through a video conference, Gilbert held meetings with Marvel Studios and Disney's publicity and distribution departments to coordinate and ensure the film's subsequent momentum.
In addition, Gilbert also used paid online promoters to steer the rhythm on the internet. A large number of soft promotional articles and review-like commentaries flooded every corner of the web; even well-known adult website forums had paid posters guiding the discussion.
To those unaware, one might think The Avengers was filmed in the San Fernando Valley.
With the support of such powerful promotional forces, The Avengers continued to maintain a strong performance on Saturday, with theaters sustaining extremely high attendance rates.
Although theaters were operating at full capacity, enthusiastic audiences still packed them to the brim. The POS machines used for payment were even swiped until they broke down, forcing theaters to adopt cash payments instead.
Amid all this, one sales channel stood out particularly brightly.
Ever since acquiring the IMDb website and incorporating it under the Watermelon Company as a subsidiary, Gilbert had been thinking about how to leverage IMDb's massive fan base to do something meaningful.
If things stayed as they were, at most it would just become a North American version of Douban, with the eventual outcome being abandonment by audiences.
But Gilbert believed IMDb had enormous development potential and could be turned into a North American version of Maoyan Movies—that is, an online ticketing system.
..
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