Nobody cares about Metacritic scores. They are completely irrelevant, except maybe for a few executives. These are summer movies, not fall award oriented artsy flicks. There are plenty of "bad" movies doing incredible business during the summer. What we're talking about here is timing. The Dictator, for instance, was moved by a week when WB made the mistake of advertizing Dark Shadows as a comedy. No one in Hollywood expected The Avengers to do so well, and as a result, all the other movies are paying for it.
I was using the metacritic scores as a simple indiction of quality and you could use any other likability measure that you want - I have a feeling that they would be similar to the metacritic numbers (i.e. lukewarm at best). Any typical summer movie which also happens to get positive reviews (via critics and/or audience) is much, much more likely to become a hit.
The total box office capacity for a given week in the U.S. is
far above the $60 mil Avengers is pulling in this week. True, timing is not helping the case of these other films, but if any of them were actually any good, then there is
plenty of available cash. The only thing preventing these new films from being successful is that they are not very good, poorly marketed, and/or never had a real audience to begin with...
Anyone who didn't expect
The Avengers to be a big hit is a fool. The last few big comic releases received lukewarm receptions precisely because EVERYONE was waiting for them to get to the point already. You can also look at it this way, the repeat business for The Avengers has just as much to do with the lack of any real competition as it does with the quality of the film. Had any of these other films been any good then they would be putting more of a dent into The Avenger's take...
Cowboys and Aliens, The Last Airbender, Night at the Museum, Sherlock Holmes, Fast and Furious...
BTW, The whole point of
C&A was that it hit a boatload of built-in audiences (Western, Sci-fi, popular Director, popular leads),
The Last Airbender had dual built-ins with being a very popular cartoon series and an M. Night Abomination.
Night at the Museum benefited greatly by being the (only) PG movie of choice during a Christmas holiday season stuffed with rated R releases (no competition and parents had to take the kids somewhere), this also help explain the
Alvin & the Chipmunks nightmares.
Sherlock is almost the definition of built-in audience.
F&F was a late summer release with little to no competition, if I remember correctly.