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I may officially be the only person left on the planet that has yet to see The Avengers after Disney reported the film took in $207 million in its opening weekend. But naturally, this number is once again going to be shattered when the Dark Knight Rises releases in a few months. See a trend here? Like clockwork, the blockbuster films of the year seems to "SHATTER" the hauls of past films. For a while, the opening weekend was a pretty stable affair, with Spiderman-2 being the benchmark of success. So what happened since then? For one, cinemas became these cash cows that doubled their ticket prices. I can't even watch a movie in New York without clearing 15 bucks, and even back home in Florida, 10-12 bucks for a ticket makes it twice as easy for a movie to take in these hauls compared to Spiderman-2 when movie tickets were $6-7. Second reason why these new movies are raking in the dough: 3-D and IMAX. Back in the day, when commercials said "in theaters and IMAX near you," IMAX was like this mythical concept that barely anyone went to see. Now it's become the ubiquitous measure of AWESOME and tickets sell out even before the movie gets out (a la Dark Knight Rises). The landscape for a movie to break records is ten times easier now than it was a few years back. Even if the Avengers is a great movie, and I'm sure it is, I'm not sure if these numbers should impress compared to the achievements of old. But maybe I'm just bitter that it beat Harry Potter's record. Wizards are cooler.

-Aureen Sarker (Photo Credit: Disney)

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