It took Men in Black 3 to topple the Avengers from it’s perch on top of the box office.  MIB 3 brought in $55 million over its first three days in North American theaters, a disappointment as it didn’t hit it’s estimates.  The Avengers made $37 million for a four-week domestic total of $523.8 million.  The Men in Black franchise is based on a comic book series, so it took a comic book movie to beat a comic book movie.

The Avengers set a record though.  On Saturday it passed $500 million domestically.  It achieved that in 23 days versus Avatar’s 32 days.  Avengers currently sits as the number four top grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation) and will likely slide into third place before it’s run is over.  It needs about $10 million before it takes third domestically and $23 million for that place globally, so expect both of those milestones before next weekend is over.