Tribeca 2012: 'Avengers' Brings Studio Firepower to Festival's Closing Night

Though it didn’t have the glamor of the April 11 premiere at Los Angeles’ El Capitan Theatre, The Avengers gave a shot of Hollywood glitz to the Tribeca Film Festival’s April 28 closing night.

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Star Robert Downey Jr. said it was “appropriate” to screen Disney’s American super hero film near the World Trade Center site, though one Disney exec said the theater at the Borough of Manhattan Community College was like seeing  it “in my high school auditorium.” (The BMCC theater did not come close to equaling the El Capitan as a big screen, action film venue.)

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Audience response was good with Chazz Palminteri describing Avengers as “Avatar on steroids”; Crash director Paul Haggis calling it “unexpectedly satisfying,” and Christine Lahti saying the film is “a fun romp with a core of humor.”

 At the festival’s wrap party, fest creative director Geoffrey Gilmore said an Avengers-type action film isn’t for Tribeca’s core audience “but every festival that has a studio film aspires to have one that plays and this one closed through the roof.”