Weekend Box Office: May 18 - 20

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  The Avengers - $55 million

2.  Battleship - $25.4 million

3.  The Dictator - $17.4 million

4.  Dark Shadows - $12.7 million

5.  What to Expect When You're Expecting - $10.5 million

6.  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - $3.2 million

7.  The Hunger Games - $3 million

8.  Think Like a Man - $2.7 million

9.  The Lucky One - $1.7 million

10.  The Pirates! Band of Misfits - $1.4 million

I'll skip past the lame "sunk your Battleship" jokes and just go straight to what was expected this weekend at the box office:  The Avengers easily took first place for the third weekend in a row with an estimated $55 million.  Its domestic total now stands at $457 million - besting The Dark Knight's record by passing the $450 million mark in just 17 days (Batman took 27 days to reach that milestone in 2008) - and has also passed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to become Disney's highest-grossing film.  Worldwide, it's earned $1.1 billion and is now the fifth-highest grossing film of all time.

But that was the only movie that had something to smile about this weekend.  Battleship tanked with just $25.3 million - even less than John Carter opened with earlier this year.  That's got to be even worse for Taylor Kitsch, who starred in both films.  The film opened last month overseas and earned a much better $226 million, so that helps.  A little.

To no one's surprise (how long ago was Borat?), Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator also underwhelmed, earning just $24 million since opening on Wednesday.  What to Expect When You're Expecting went virtually unnoticed this weekend with only $10.5 million, while Dark Shadows dropped an ugly 57% to earn just $12.7 million.  Still doing extemely well in limited release is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which earned $3.2 million in only 178 theaters.

For the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, we have the first (possibly?) serious challenger for The Avengers, as Men in Black 3 opens in theaters.  We also have the releases of the horror film Chernobyl Diaries and Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.