Avengers: Age of Ultron believed to be Marvel's first $2B movie

May 1st, 2015 is going to see the U.S. release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, a superhero team movie that not only serves as the anticipated sequel to The Avengers, but is another entry in the individual series of characters like Iron Man and Captain America, and serves to further advance the Marvel Comics Universe. With the recently released Age of Ultron trailer racking up over 34 million views in the first 24 hours, it's beginning to look like the movie will set new box office records.

Over at The Motley Fool, a financial investment guide blog, Tim Beyers believes the second Avengers movie will become the third film in history to make over $2 billion, coming after Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). The main basis for his analysis is looking at how well Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Thor: The Dark World did at the box office. The reason for these three movies specifically is because they came after the 2012 release of the first Avengers movie.

Beyers points out that each of the three movies did much better than their pre-Avengers entries. Iron Man 3 saw a 94.8% improvement over the second film, making over $1.2 billion; Winter Soldier was up 92.7% over the first Captain America, with $714 million; and Dark World topped Thor by 43.5%, with $644 million. The reason behind these movies' greater reception among viewers is simply because of how popular The Avengers turned out to be, earning great reviews and proving that Marvel could deliver on its premise of an epic-scale film with not one, but five superheroes.

Basically, moviegoers saw The Avengers, got into the Marvel universe and saw characters' individual sequels, and are now likely to come back and see the next movie with the whole gang together.

Another likely reason for Age of Ultron's success is longtime fans wanting to get little glimpses of future of Marvel's universe. Only a week ago the studio dropped a bombshell and revealed the schedule for nine more movies to be released between 2016 and 2019, including two more Avengers releases, and many for characters we haven't seen yet. With recent Marvel movies giving hints or setting up plots for forthcoming entries, the studio has earned a reputation of leaving viewers excited for what's to come next, and it's a sure bet that next year's Avengers will do the same.

SOURCE The Motley Fool