Marvel’s Disney’s “The Avengers” had a rather strange journey to get where it is today. When Disney bought Marvel in 2009 for $4 billion. Done mostly for it’s iconic characters, the move has finally paid off for the Disney. They took a semi-big chance and made the first “Iron Man” which was a huge success taking in a little more than $585 million. Then that same year “The Incredible Hulk” was released which did good, making $263 million. It was by no means a failure, but it didn’t even double the money that was spent to make the film. So the jury was still out on whether “The Avengers” was actually going to get made even though they started to tease the fact that a film was coming. By the time “Iron Man 2” came out it was a guarantee. Now the Marvel movie franchises have made over $4 billion combined (including the Fantastic 4 and X-men movies), and as soon as the outstanding licensing deals run out, Disney will make back their investment in no time.

This past weekend it was pretty much a no brainer that “The Avengers” was going to get the top spot, what wasn’t know was how much more money they were going to make on the second weekend. Well they dominated with a total of $103.1 million which is a lot less than the first weekend of $270+ million. Coming in a second is the Johnny Depp vampire movie “Dark Shadows” which made a respectable $28.8 million. Rounding out the top 5 are “Think Like a Man” in at #3 with $6.3 million, “The Hunger Games” at #4 with $4.4 million, and “The Lucky One” with $4 million.

Look for “The Avengers to be knocked off of it’s mighty perch next week when “Battleship” hits theaters on May 18th, and if it somehow manages to survive, It will not make it past the next weekend when “Men In Black 3” debuts.