After all the drama, the day is finally here – Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel” arrives in theaters. And for those that think the drama will suddenly cease to exist, we’re sorry to report that the opening of the Brie Larson-led superhero film brought forth some incredibly great box office numbers and also some depressing troll news.
First, the bad news, since we’re the type of folks that enjoy getting that out of the way. Even though Rotten Tomatoes changed its audience rating system to prevent trolls from bombing “Captain Marvel” with terrible reviews before the film hits theaters, it would appear that those “fans” were just waiting for the release date before the bad review tidal wave began.
READ MORE: ‘Captain Marvel’ Flies High & Fast, But Struggles With Narrative Turbulence [Review]
Even though the film has been in theaters for less than 24 hours, “Captain Marvel” currently has a 33% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which would normally be seen as terrible. However, with over 58,000 audience reviews, it’s clear that something fishy is going on here. As pointed out on Twitter, “Avengers: Infinity War,” which was the most popular film of 2018, with over $2 billion in ticket sales, has only 53,000 audience ratings total. And as we said, that film has been out for almost a full calendar year.
Clearly, the coordinated attack from the toxic fans threatened by Brie Larson’s message of diversity and inclusivity was only delayed by Rotten Tomatoes recent changes.
A filmmaker well aware of toxic fandom, Rian Johnson, had this to say about the “Captain Marvel” audience rating, “Pretty much the new ‘Certified Fresh’ badge.”
Now, the good news for those that were hoping that “Captain Marvel” would succeed and serve as yet another example that diverse films, created by women and/or people of color, are box office gold. With preview screenings of “Captain Marvel” beginning last night at 7pm, many fans were able to crowd the theaters to see just how Larson’s film would turn out. And boy, oh boy, did the fans come out in droves.
According to early estimates, “Captain Marvel” earned $20.7 million in Thursday grosses. To put it in perspective, “Captain Marvel” will beat the first night’s totals for “Suicide Squad” ($20.5M) and “The Avengers” ($18.7M). And as for the other major female-led superhero film, “Wonder Woman,” “Captain Marvel” almost doubled that film’s Thursday night opening of $11 million.
If this sort of performance plays out throughout the weekend, we could be looking at grosses for “Captain Marvel” that far exceeds the already massive predictions coming into the weekend. This would prove, yet again, that the trolls that have tried to derail the film are just the very loud, obnoxious minority.
Pretty much the new “Certified Fresh” badge https://t.co/uCia16jzaD
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) March 8, 2019
Just a few hours after opening user reviews on @RottenTomatoes, #CaptainMavel has over 58k reviews. Infinity War, a movie released a YEAR AGO only has 53K total.
Hey @RottenTomatoes are you ever going to stop people from using bots to spam your site or do you just not care? pic.twitter.com/RmGMgZ9C23
— ManaByte (@ManaByte) March 8, 2019
