'AVENGERS' $20M MIDNIGHTS? No Record: $320+Million Worldwide And U.S. Counting; Is This Hollywood's Biggest Ever ' Or Not?

FRIDAY 8 AM: Rival studios tell me that Marvel's The Avengers from Disney did not set a record for midnight showings ' and made between $18 million-$20 million from about 2,500 North American theaters. IMAX reports $1.31 million from midnights playing at 273 locations, also not a record. The overall midnights record is still Warner Bros' Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 with $43.5M.  Disney has not released an official number yet.

FRIDAY 12:01 AM EXCLUSIVE' Disney began releasing Marvel's The Avengers in Digital 3D, RealD and IMAX 3D after midnight into about 2,500 locations around the U.S. and Canada after first playing filmmaker Joss Whedon's pic overseas for the past week. 'It's tracking off the charts. Biggest in every category and with everyone ' men, women, young, old. Any way you slice it and dice it. It's just a mega-movie,' one rival studio mogul gushed to me Thursday night. And exhibitors hoping for record box office results are trying to accomodate all the crowds lining up for hours (photo above, Miami) for their first look at this rave-reviewed PG-13 superhero spectacle that's earned $300+M internationally already. Major theater chains are adding shows from 12:01 AM into the wee hours. 'In an effort to handle the mass demand Regal will be adding additional AM shows at many theatres nationally,' Regal announced. At the AMC Empire Theatre in Manhattan,  The Avengers was planning to show on 21 screens at 12:01 AM with contingency plans to play it on all 25 screens if needed. Turns out those extra screens were needed ' and most of the moviegoers have on their RealD Avengers collector 3D glasses. Many moviegoers bought advance tickets for the 'Ultimate Marvel Marathon' ' screenings of the Marvel Studios' movies Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America leading up to the midnight release of The Avengers. The event sold out in several major U.S. and Canadian markets more than a month ago.

The first guest on NYC's IMAX line had been there since 8:39 AM Thursday. The 12:01 IMAX show sold out weeks ago, and less than 100 seats remained for the 3:30 AM show. At the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, 'round the clock' screenings of the 143-minute movie are skedded with breakfast served at 2:30 AM. Exclusive limited print run comic books are on hand for guests at the 4 AM showing. The pressure is on at this Disney-owned venue because The Avengers is the first Marvel Studios film to be marketed and distributed by The Walt Disney Studios which now owns the entertainment company. For Friday matinees leading into the all-important evening, Disney set its widest theater count at 4,349 locations, including 3,364 plays in 3D.

The U.S. debut follows the incredible success of The Avengers overseas in 41 countries with grosses totalling  $281.1 million through its first eight days in theaters (photo right, Seoul). This weekend adds Russia and China where 3D actioners do incredibly well. In the U.S. no other big movie dared to open Friday against this mega-blockbuster which could speed anywhere past $160M during its first 3 days of release through Sunday. The first weekend of May is one of the most lucrative release dates each year, especially for Marvel comic book adaptations. (The first Spider-Man movie in 2002 set a new opening weekend record on this date as did Spider-Man 3 in 2007.) Now the only question is how big is big ' and whether The Avengers will top Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2's current record of $169.2M because of ticket price inflation and 3D premiums.

Disney and Marvel Studios successfully marketed filmmaker Joss Whedon's actioner as 'The Super Hero Team Up Of A Lifetime' because it featured iconic Marvel figures Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Nick Fury. The film stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, and Samuel L. Jackson. It's based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series 'The Avengers,' first published in 1963. The film is produced by Marvel Studios' President Kevin Feige and executive produced by Alan Fine, Jon Favreau, Stan Lee, Louis D'Esposito, Patricia Whitcher, Victoria Alonso and Jeremy Latcham. The story is by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon and the screenplay is by Whedon who also directed.

Pre-sales were gargantuan with Fandango reporting soaring ticket sales and more than 1,000 showtimes sold out in advance of the midnight opening. 'The Avengers is on track to become one of Fandango's top ticket-sellers of the year, representing 95% of Thursday's sales.' The superhero ensemble movie is also outperforming all previous Marvel titles, including all Spider-Man movies and Avengers-related films at the same point in the sales cycle. On top of that, The Avengers is outpacing last summer's action blockbuster Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon at the same point in that film's sales cycle. According to a recent Fandango survey, The Avengers is the most anticipated film of this summer, with 66% of fans planning to see it more than once on the big screen. MovieTickets.com reported back on April 26th that The Avengers has pre-sold over 1.5 times more tickets than Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America combined. It topped Fandango's 'Most Anticipated Summer Movie' survey as #1 movie for men, #2 movie for women, #1 movie for 3D, and most anticipated ensemble cast.

Though extremely big, Disney's theatre count isn't the all-time list of widest openings at the box office. It's #7. (No. 1 is June 2010's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse which released into 4,468 theaters.) The Avengers will open in 275 theatres, or more than half of the IMAX 3D format in 451 digital theatres worldwide. More IMAX territories are launching in tandem with the North American release this week, including China. Domestic IMAX pre-sales are also strong and significantly ahead of any previous Marvel releases.

In-theater promotion kicked off back in July 2011 with a teaser end-tag attached to Captain America: The First Avenger, with a simultaneous teaser print debut featuring the iconic 'A' branding and 'Assemble' call to action. Theatrical trailers appeared with some of the past year's biggest hits including Mission Impossible 4, 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games, and more. Trailers for Marvel's The Avengers broke iTunes records twice for the most viewed trailer in a 24-hour period ' first in October 2011 with 10.6M views (breaking Transformers 3 record by 40%) and again in February 2012 with 13.7M views, which continues to stand as most viewed trailer online to-date. The Avengers was the #1 rated movie advertisement of the Super Bowl 2012 broadcast and earned the highest number of online mentions among all the big game's ads. The world premiere at Disney's El Capitan in Los Angeles on April 11 (featuring YouTube's livestream of Red Carpet arrivals) kicked off the film's global talent and filmmaker publicity tour, including premieres, special screenings and press across key markets including Moscow, UK, Italy, Germany, China (Beijing Int'l Film Festival), and Brazil, plus the closing night of NYC's Tribeca Film Festival.

Besides the usual plethora of magazine covers and TV appearances, Facebook fan screenings in 10 major U.S. cities were held on April 14th, plus 14 international markets. There was unprecedented Apple partnership including homepage takeovers, desktop client, CRM eblasts, countdown messaging, social media, mobile, and Apple TV promotion. The Avengers Alliance social game integration featured its first-ever TV spot debut, used as an incentive to earn additional digital rewards (with over 4M players in 30 days). Widespread promotional and retail partnerships were sold (TV, online, in-pack, in-store, and out-of-home) with Acura, Dr. Pepper, Hershey's, Farmer's Insurance Red Baron, Target, and others.

EXCLUSIVE, WEDNESDAY: My sources estimate the global juggernaut that is Marvel's The Avengers from Disney could close in on $160M when it opens in North America this weekend and $425M when it debuts in Russia and China for a possible total near $585M through Sunday. Even very conservative estimates put the worldwide total at $500M through Sunday when Joss Whedon's actioner will be open in every movie territory except Japan. 'May Day holiday gave them huge lift so will definitely get to $500 million this weekend,' a rival studio exec tells me today. 'Probably closer to $550M.' The Avengers made $42.3M overseas from 41 territories, bringing the total through Tuesday to $260.5M.

In an April survey on Fandango, the majority of moviegoers picked The Avengers as the most anticipated film of the summer. Some 66% of fans said they plan to see the pic on the big screen more than once. About 31% chose Iron Man as the film's biggest draw, followed by The Hulk (23%); Thor (15%), and Captain America (12%). And 52% said Black Widow is the next Avengers character they'd like to see in a solo vehicle, followed by 35% for Hawkeye, and 13% for Nick Fury.

Overseas, Thailand & Singapore opened yesterday on their National Labor Day holiday and set not only the highest opening day in industry history, but also the highest grossing single day of all-time. New cumes to date include UK $29.8M, Mexico $27.0M, Australia $22.6M, France $19.7M, Brazil $18.8M.

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.