“Higher. Further. Faster.” That was that tagline for Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel,” and a good description of the superhero blockbuster’s massive box office weekend.
After weeks of drama with trolls trying to review bomb Rotten Tomatoes and start dumb hashtags to get people to boycott the Brie Larson-led film, citing incredibly out of context quotes that would lead people to believe the actress “hates white guys,” “Captain Marvel” finally hit theaters and not only did it have a very impressive debut, the 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe broke some records along the way.
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Sorry trolls, Carol Danvers won the battle.
“Captain Marvel” earned an estimated $153 million in its opening domestic frame. That total could climb to $157 million after official stats are released by Disney tomorrow, but regardless, the domestic haul is impressive and somehow more than what was already predicted. “Captain Marvel” now holds the third-best March debut of all time, behind “Beauty and the Beast” ($174.7 million) and “Batman v. Superman” ($166 million). The film also marks the 7th best debut for a Marvel Studios film.
The domestic total is impressive enough without qualifications, but when you take into account the fact that this is the debut for a character (who hadn’t appeared in any other MCU films previously) and a hero that has not had any sort of crossover appeal in years past (Carol Danvers, up until recent years, was little more than a C-list character in Marvel Comics), it really shows the power of the Marvel brand. And for those naysayers that believe the film will have a catastrophic drop in the weeks to come, it’s not just critics that had a positive feeling towards the film. Audiences enjoyed it just as much, giving the film a great A CinemaScore, which means that word-of-mouth should be strong in the coming frames.
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But let’s be real, you can’t talk about superhero debut weekends, without bringing up the global numbers, and this is where you start to see the true power of “Captain Marvel.” Estimates put Brie Larson’s film at a massive $455 million worldwide, including a really strong $89.3 million from China. The global total is the 6th highest opening weekend of all time. And perhaps, most importantly, “Captain Marvel” now holds the biggest worldwide box office debut record for a female-led film.
For perspective, “Captain Marvel’s” worldwide opening puts it as the 2nd best superhero debut of all time (behind only “Avengers: Infinity War” and it’s stunning $630 million). Yes, “Captain Marvel” bested “Black Panther” by $25 million when comparing global openings. Will “Captain Marvel” reach $1 billion like the 2018 Chadwick Boseman-led film? Eh, it’s going to be tough, especially considering it only has less than two months before “Avengers: Endgame.” But, stranger things have happened.
The real question is what happens next weekend. The audience survey scores would lead you to believe that we could be looking at a low drop in the -50% range. However, comparing to films with similar debuts, if it creeps up to the -60% range, the film could end up earning “only” around $400 million-ish domestically, similar to something like “The Hunger Games.” If it’s closer to -50%, we could be looking at something like “The Dark Knight,” which ended its domestic run with $533 million. Next week does feature some wide releases debuting, but nothing that could take a chunk out of “Captain Marvel.”
As is normally the case when a big superhero blockbuster debuts, the rest of the top 10 domestically, suffered major drops, all around -50%. The lone film that held its ground is the documentary “Apollo 11,” which bolstered by an additional 285 theaters, only dropped -19% for a #10 showing and $1.3 million. Counter-programming is an antiquated idea for the most part, but it does appear that Neon picked a good time to debut its acclaimed space documentary, which as we’ve said time and time again, deserves to be seen on the biggest possible screen you can find.
As for other “major” debuts, the only one worth noting is the limited release of “Gloria Bell,” which stars Julianne Moore. The English-language remake of the popular film “Gloria,” debuted in 5 theaters and earned a per-theater-average of $30,955. That’s a really strong debut for the film and would normally carry the largest PTA of the weekend. But actually “Captain Marvel” did earn the biggest PTA with $35,499.
Next weekend sees the debuts of sci-fi thriller “Captive State,” children’s animated film “Wonder Park,” and YA romance “Five Feet Apart.” None of these will compete with “Captain Marvel” for the #1 spot, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of these films can chip away at the general public’s love of Brie Larson’s superhero.
Here’s the entire domestic top 10 for March 8 to March 10:
1. Captain Marvel – $153M (Debut)
2. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – $14.7M ($120M Overall)
3. Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral – $12M ($46M)
4. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part – $3.8M ($97M)
5. Alita: Battle Angel – $3.2M (78M)
6. Green Book – $2.5M (80M)
7. Isn’t It Romantic? – $2.4M (44M)
8. Fighting with My Family – $2.19M ($18.6M)
9. Greta – $2.16M ($8M)
10. Apollo 11 – $1.3M ($3.8M)
