Avengers Sink Battleship at UK Box Office

The Avengers (titled Avengers Assemble in the UK) exploded at the UK box office with £15.78 million — or roughly $25.6 million — over the weekend, including its Thursday preview screenings, giving the superhero film the winning spot among British releases. And coming in the heels of John Carter (which has yet to even break the £5m mark in Britain), Disney is wasting no time celebrating, calling the result the biggest superhero-movie opening of all time, The Guardian reports.

By comparison, The Dark Knight debuted in Great Britain with £11.19m ($18.1m, including previews), while Spider-Man 3 kicked off with £11.83m ($19.1m, sans previews) in May 2007 and Iron Man 2 grabbed just £7.66m ($12.3m, including previews) back in April 2010. Meanwhile, Battleship, which launched April 11 in the UK, has dropped from first to sixth place, taking in the rough equivalent of $811,000 from 436 locations — a 61-percent decline from the previous weekend.

Rounding out the British theatrical top five, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen took in £1.08m ($1.75m) from 417 sites, The Hunger Games followed with just over £744K ($1.2m) from 398 locations, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists landed at number four with nearly £664K ($1.07m) at 511 theaters, and The Cabin in the Woods closed the top five with almost £562K ($911K) at 383 locations.

[The Guardian]