The Hunger Games was toppled in the American charts after four weeks at the top but with only two weeks in on the local box office, The Avengers looks to have the odds in its favour come this weekend.

Last weeks new entries didn’t make too much of a dent in the charts with Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror making it to 2nd place and The Grey placing in at 5. Absent of course is the nature doc One Life and The Cup (which should really be renamed The Kak as it was so terrible that I didn’t want to spoil Friday with a review of it). Also pushed out was the heinous 21 Jump Street and Angus Buchan’s Ordinary People – not soon enough if I might add.

The biggest release of the year is on our doorstep (sorry Bat fans), Marvel’s The Avengers is just a few days away and it almost seems surreal given that the journey started four years and has finally come full circle. It’s also interesting to note that there aren’t any other mainstream films releasing this week (although I’m hardly surprised seeing that this behemoth would decimate the competition). There has been an enormous marketing campaign surrounding The Avengers and despite it most likely breaking even easily, one would think that Disney would have learned their lesson from John Carter – of which the excessive marketing campaign had a budget almost as large as the film itself and till this day hasn’t recouped the costs. One thing that pleases me is how South Africa retained the American title of the film rather than adopting “The Avengers Assemble” from our British counterparts – the controversial decision, as far as I can imagine, was made to differentiate the film from old The Avengers TV series…how anyone could get the two confused is beyond me.

Other releases are on the art house circuit which include A Million Colours – the sequel to the widely renouned elolipop, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – a charming film about the challenges that are faced when Ewan McGregor is hired to introduce Salmon into the Yemen by a wealthy Sheikh.

As for next week, I think it’s clear who the winner will be – other than that, don’t expect too many changes.

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