Superheroes beat Star Wars
Avengers: Infinity War is probably going to smash the record for biggest opening weekend. Initially charted by Disney for a conservative $225 million debut, Both Variety and Box Office Mojo have pegged it for a $250 million premiere weekend in North America, which would surpass Star Wars: The Force Awakens ’ opening in December 2015.
Full sales figures will be known on Monday.
Bigger picture, this would give Disney five of the six films to have opened with $200 million weekends (domestically) and two of them in 2018 — Black Panther being the other. Black Panther, which premiered Feb, 16 and is still showing in about 1,500 theaters, is up to more than $680 million in North American receipts, third-most all time. It did $202 million worth of business in its premiere weekend. It held the record for best superhero movie’s debut for fewer than three months — but still a good problem for Disney to have.
Worldwide, Black Panther has taken in $1.3 billion in sales; it and Infinity War have brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise to $15 billion all-time. Four other Marvel films, The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Iron Man 3 (2013) and Captain America: Civil War (2016) have grossed more than a billion worldwide. It all adds up to Marvel superheroes overtaking Star Wars as the biggest money-maker at the box office.
