'Avengers: Infinity War' Has Had The Second Largest Opening Day Ever

Avengers: Infinity War is celebrating the second largest opening figures in cinema history.

It finished the first day of screenings with a massive $106 million (which, admittedly, includes $39 million from late night Thursday screenings) and sits behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the all-time list.

Obviously this makes it the biggest opening figures for a Marvel release by some distance.

Disney reckons that the opening weekend figures will eventually amount to something like $225 - 240 million, which will put it higher that Star Wars' latest offering, The Last Jedi. The Force Awakens will likely remain top of the tree with opening weekend stats of $248 million.

It's not just the United States of America that it has shot to the top of the charts either. International figures suggest takings of about $178.5 million through Friday. It has broken records in several different countries around the world.

This is a big deal for Disney, who own the Marvel brand and control the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The success of Avengers: Infinity War means that the giant studio has taken in more than $1 billion already in 2018 - pretty good numbers whoever you are.

It means that they've broken the record for the shortest amount of time to reach that figure in a calendar year.

As it happens, the previous record was 128 days - set back in 2016, also by Disney.

Even though it seems as if the fans are lapping up all of the Avengers action, the critics have actually been pretty divided when it comes to reaching a consensus on whether it's actually good.

"Especially those who've spent any time wondering what it would be like to witness Chris Hemsworth's Thor wisecracking with Chris Pratt's Star-Lord, or tagging along with some of the Avengers as they hightail it to Wakanda."

It's a bit like 10 pounds of movie jammed into a five-pound bag ... It ends up feeling a bit too disjointed - like we're flipping the channels between four different movies instead of watching one cohesive one."

"There are at least ten moments in this movie that made me want to just yell out, "yeah!," at the screen. If you are a human being who likes comic books or comic book movies, it's almost impossible not to enjoy the spectacle of it all."