The records continue to shatter for Marvel. The studio’s “Avengers: Infinity War” is a monster wiping out everything in its path at the box office with a Thanos-worthy “snap!” As you’ve heard, ‘Infinity War’ earned the highest grossing opening of all time domestically, even beating “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with a whopping $258 million North American debut.
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The film also scored the biggest worldwide opening of all time too $640.9 million — $100 million more than the previous record holder, “The Fate of the Furious” ($541.9 million). The records toppled this weekend: the biggest superhero movie opening of all time domestically (somehow “Batman V Superman” still holds the foreign title), the biggest Saturday of all time, the biggest Saturday and Sunday in North America ever, etc. etc. You do not want to mess with “Avengers: Infinity War” and that’s why every studio is staying clear of the film until the first contender hits on May 18 (“Deadpool 2“).
And the congratulations keep pouring in too. This weekend, Ryan Reynolds sent a congratulatory tweet to the studio with a comical Avengers rejection letter that Deadpool received from Tony Stark and yesterday, Lucasfilm released a classy tweet congratulating Kevin Feige and company with a photo of Rey’s hand passing on the lightsaber torch to Iron Man’s hand in a gesture recognizing the box office record that Marvel bested from ‘Force Awakens.’
https://twitter.com/VancityReynolds/status/990608469672714240
But I’m almost surprised Warner Bros. and DC Studios haven’t released a similar picture with Batman holding up a white flag to Thanos and everyone at Marvel.
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/991326886801309697
Perhaps one of the most embarrassing box office records of all time is the fact that Marvel’s ‘Infinity War,’ in just four days, has surpassed the entire worldwide box office run of DC Films’ “Justice League.” That’s right, “Justice League” earned a total of $657 million after its 17 weekend run in theaters. After this weekend, ‘Infinity War’ stood just seventeen million away with a $640 million. The next day, or just a few hours into the next day, ‘Infinity War’ has lapped that mark and as of today (four days in release), the superhero blockbuster has earned $725.5 million globally (domestically, $282M).
In North America, “Justice League” didn’t stand a chance. After 17 weeks in theaters, the DC superhero team-up movie only grossed $229 million domestically and ‘Infinity War’ squashed that number in the first three days of its release.
This may seem mean, or “biased” as the fan argument always likes to say, but minds are still reeling that DC’s equivalent of “The Avengers” performed this poorly (the lowest grossing film in the DCEU) and it cannot be understated just what a blow this must have been (and is) to the franchise and company. They’re trucking away, as usual, with “Aquaman” coming in December and “Shazam!” next year, but I’m a little bit surprised they haven’t cleaned house creatively in a major way.
There’s always talk of “superhero fatigue” and how Marvel is immune to it, but it’s really just a made up term. Fans don’t have fatigue for DC over Marvel, for example, it’s just that they’re happy to continue shelling out money if the films are good. Eventually, the craze will crash and people will pull out the “superhero fatigue” moniker again, but the reality will likely be the quality, after all these years, will probably have just dipped.