All signs still point to a boffo North American opening for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, when it opens on May 4th.  The superhero team-up movie has already set a new opening day record in New Zealand, earned the second highest debut day total in Australian box office history, and also took in $3 million in France.  The movie has already earned over $12 million internationally, though it has yet to open fully in any market.  Complete data on the film’s international debut weekend should be available in the ICv2 box office report on Sunday.

 

Meanwhile back in the USA, The Avengers has pre-sold more tickets than all the previous Marvel Studios films put together at the same point in their exhibition cycles.  Critics are also voicing their-approval—the movie has a sterling 96% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.  Variety’s Justin Chang called the movie “a buoyant, witty and robustly entertaining superhero smash-up,’ while the AP’s Christy Lemire wrote that "the dialogue sparkles as brightly as the special effects; these people may be wearing ridiculous costumes, but they’re well fleshed-out underneath. And so in every regard, this movie truly fulfills its hype."

 

Of course the mighty Marvel Studios hype machine is not about to falter in the homestretch.  The Avengers’ cast is making the rounds of the talk shows with Chris Hemsworth due on Letterman on Friday (Cobie Smulders did the show last week), while ScarJo and Robert Downey, Jr. will visit The Tonight Show on Wednesday and Thursday of next week respectively, and Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo will appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday and Tuesday respectively with Ruffalo also appearing on Live! With Kelly on Wednesday.