Marvel Studios’ latest movie, Captain Marvel, opened for Thursday previews last night in less than 4,000 theaters, and it grossed an estimated $20.7 million in those showings that began at 7pm.

That’s the fifth best Thursday preview number for a Marvel movie, but the second best for a non-sequel character introduction movie after last year’s Black Panther, which made $25.2 million in previews that was incorporated into a $75.9 million opening day and $202 million in its first three days.  Marvel’s top opener Avengers: Infinity War also came out last year with $39 million in previews and a $257.7 million three-day opening.

While Black Panther is probably the best comparison, it also opened over a four-day weekend with a school and Government holiday on Monday. Many schools are going to start their spring break next week which could help Captain Marvel maintain its business on Sunday.

If Captain Marvel matches the progress of Black Panther over the weekend, it’s looking at a $165 million opening. That actual number could be lower since there seemed to be a lot more Thursday previews than normal. At least one theater in New York City was showing the movie every five minutes and well past midnight, so we’ll have to see how that affects the Friday box office (into which the Thursday previews are incorporated).

Check back on Saturday for an update on how well Captain Marvel does overall on Friday, but right now it’s looking like it will do somewhere between 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($146.5 million opening weekend) and 2016’s Captain America: Civil War ($179.1 million opening). It also might fall short of the March opening record set by Disney’s Beauty and the Beast with $174.7 million two years ago.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

6 COMMENTS

  1. Given how hyped this movie is I find it hard to believe it won’t be a mega-hit. Not going to it is going to be like breaking some sacred social contract.

  2. From the A.V. Club:

    “Within hours of Captain Marvel’s release, an orchestrated troll campaign went into action. Tens of thousands of negative reviews, largely from people who almost certainly hadn’t seen the movie, flooded Rotten Tomatoes, tanking the aggregate score of the newest MCU entry. That this was an obvious bad-faith trolling tactic is clear from the numbers: As ComicBook.com notes, in less than 12 hours, the site had racked up almost 60,000 reviews for Captain Marvel—compare that to the 53,000 reviews given to Avengers: Infinity War over the entirety of its theatrical run, and it was immediately apparent this was a troll-led bombing campaign. The site has already purged roughly 54,000 phony reviews, and presumably that process will continue for some time.”

    https://www.avclub.com/the-fight-against-trolls-goes-beyond-captain-marvel-yo-1833165390

  3. Yes, heaven forbid anyone point out that “Captain Marvel” is on the same level at “Thor” and “Captain America; The First Avenger,” which in case everyone has forgotten weren’t that great.

    And if the folks at Marvel Studios think Brie Larson is going to replace RDJ or Chris Evans as the heart of the MCU, this is going to be a very interesting and public lesson learned.

    Mike

  4. Same level as the first Thor and Cap? Sounds great to me. I’d agree it’s probably as good as the first Thor. First Cap is superior, but that’s probably top 10 MCU for me. Thor and Capt Marvel fall into the pretty good, not great category of MCU movies. (I’d take it over Dr. Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War and maybe even Black Panther among recent ones.) I thought Larson was wonderful. I’d only seen her in King Kong where she was a non-entity. Here she carried the movie with a subtle performance–underplaying while signaling strength and determination. I had no opinion on her before this, and I’m completely in her camp now. My biggest complaints are the ’90s musical cues, which tend to distract and don’t make much narrative sense (unlike the songs in the Guardians movies), and the visuals, which fall back into a bland MCU house style. (Although even that arguably serve the story.) But this was a fine set up for a trilogy. Let’s just up they don’t follow it up with Captain Marvel: The Dark World.

  5. Bloomberg reports that Captain Marvel has the largest anti-trolling PR budget of any movie ever. After what happened to other female-led movies, Disney knew the 4chan dickheads were coming after this movie.

    “Same level as the first Thor and Cap? Sounds great to me.”

    I agree, Rod. I won’t have time to see Captain Marvel until the middle of next week, so I’ll reserve comments about its quality until then.

Comments are closed.