The Avengers has so far been a critical success for Marvel, and early overseas figures suggested it would also be a hit commercially. However, the film has surpassed all expectations by beating the opening weekend box office record previously held by Potter.

The superhero super-team movie, directed by Buffy‘s Josh Whedon, brought in an astonishing $200 million in its domestic opening weekend, estimates suggest. The Avengers glided past previous record holder Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallow Part 2 by an impressive $31 million.

Added to the current overseas gross of $441 million, Marvel will be laughing all the way to the bank with nearly $650,000,000 after a very modest ten days on release.

The current top five domestic opening weekend list looks like this:

• The Avengers – $200,300,000
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – $169,189,427
• The Dark Knight – $158,441,483
• The Hunger Games – $153,525,747
• Spider-Man 3 – $151,116,516

Do you think Avengers deserves the record, or do you think that it would be more apt for Potter to hold on to the record for its sheer cultural impact?