9TH BEST OPENING DAY: 'Iron Man 3' Scores $68.31M at the Box Office on Friday

As I've mentioned a few times the past week or so, many box office analysts had to change their tune when predicting Iron Man 3's opening weekend numbers. While I've been saying for months that The Avengers changed how Marvel Cinematic Universe movies would perform at the box office, most analysts were still basing their predictions for Iron Man 3 on Iron Man 2's box office performance. Normally, that would be the route to go, but after The Avengers shattered almost every box office record last summer, things are very different. Iron Man 3 isn't the sequel to Iron Man 2 — it's the sequel to The Avengers. While analysts spent months predicting Iron Man 3 would take in somewhere around $120 million its opening weekend, I kept saying, no, it's going to be closer to $190 million.

Iron Man 3 wound up notching the ninth-best opening day in box office history on Friday, bringing in $68.31 million. While that number didn't beat The Avengers' first day ($80.81 million) or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2's all-time best opening day ($91.07), Iron Man 3's Friday should put the movie in line for an opening weekend mark somewhere between $165 million and $195 million.