(CNN) -- Comic book fans aren't the only ones expected to assemble in theaters Friday. Judging by its early international box office take, "The Avengers" -- the superhero equivalent of a musical supergroup -- should blow away the competition, kicking off the summer movie season as a hit with a wide spectrum of moviegoers. Early tracking estimates see it as possibly beating "The Dark Knight's" then-record opening weekend from 2008, which "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" overtook last summer. Not to be outdone, the final chapter in the Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises," also has high expectations of its own to meet on July 20. ("Rises" is from Warner Bros. Pictures, and the Batman character is part of DC Comics. They are both owned by Time Warner, also CNN's parent company.)
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Hollywood bringing back box-office juggernauts Iron Man, Batman and Spider-Man
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2012 may be a peak year for superheroes on film, with much more to come
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Writer-director: DC Comics characters often face more challenges than Marvel
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'"The genre has been popular for decades and is here to stay," Boxofficeguru.com editor says
"@placeholder has a harder time of it than Marvel because their characters are (from) an old, a bygone era, where characters were bigger than we were," he said.