For weeks, I've been reminding you all that The Avengers is on the horizon — it doesn't take a box office psychic to realize a film of this magnitude will do well. And wouldn't you know, The Avengers' Friday take was $80.5 million, making it the second biggest Friday opening of all time. (Number one remains Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, because wizards are cooler than superheroes, clearly.)

And don't forget, The Avengers already earned an absurd amount of money overseas, making the current take a nauseating $414.8 million. Any guesses as to what the final gross will be? I'll go ahead and say, enough to buy Greece.

It helps that The Avengers is in 3D — unlike, say, The Dark Knight, which earned an impressive $67.3 million on its first Friday without the inflated ticket prices that come along with those damn glasses. But The Avengers also boosts massive star power and character draw, combining superheroes from a slew of films that did really well on their own.

[The film has eclipsed] the total lifetime grosses for Iron Man ($267 million), Thor ($268 million), Captain America: The First Avenger ($192 million) and Iron Man 2 ($311.5 million) — whose characters also are in Avengers.

Yeah, we're just not going to talk about The Incredible Hulk. Or poor forgotten Ed Norton.

Assuming business keeps up throughout the weekend, The Avengers could earn $170 million, which would actually give it a slight advantage over Deathly Hallows' first weekend gross of $169.2 million. Take that, Harry.

Also opening this weekend: seriously, who cares?

[Image via AP]