‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is still roughly 100 days away from its release, but the film is already off to a flying start at the box office.The highly anticipated Marvel film has reportedly crossed the USD 40 million mark in advance ticket sales, marking a new milestone in pre-sale box office business. According to Global Box Office, the tickets for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ went on sale in July shortly after director duo Joe and Anthony Russo dropped the film’s first trailer.Within hours of the trailer debut, the movie reportedly collected an estimated Rs 16.5 million on its opening day of pre-sales from around 1,000 premium theatres. At the time, the film confortably earned roughly twice the collection of that of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’. The momentum continued to build in the weeks that followed, with pre-sales reportedly reaching USD 35 million by mid-August before climbing to the current USD 40 million mark.If these figures hold, then ‘Doomsday’ has become the first film to reach the USD 40 million mark in pre-sales thus far. It has also become the first film to hit this milestone, with roughly 100 days to its theatrical debut.The early numbers are said to be indicative of the anticipation surrounding the next Avengers instalment, which will see Robert Downey Jr. return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this time as the supervillain, Doctor Doom. Images of Downey Jr. as the iconic Marvel villain have already generated considerable buzz online.Directed by the Russo brothers, ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is expected to bring back favourite MCU heroes like Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor along with a host of other movie characters including the X-Men and Fantastic Four.The hype and anticipation around the project has fuelled projections of a domestic opening in the USD 260 million-USD 300 million range, and a wider global weekend debut of USD 1 billion, matching the record of ‘Avengers: Endgame’. Adding to the anticipation, a new ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ trailer is rumoured to be gearing up for its release this month. The clip is rumoured to be attached with the upcoming ‘Avengers Endgame: Encore’ which arrives in theatres on September 25, with additional footage that is said to link the film to ‘Avengers: Doomsday’.As per reports, ‘Doomsday’ has already moved significantly faster in early pre-sales than ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’, with its current figures said to be around 65% higher despite still being approximately a three-month wait.Meanwhile, the film is moving into its final stages of post-production. The Russo Brothers have confirmed that the film, which was in the midst of reshoots until last week, is now in the editing and scoring phase.The film’s box-office run will, however, face significant competition from another major blockbuster – ‘Dune: Part Three’ – which also releases on the same day.