‘Captain America: Civil War’ scorched the weekend box office, bringing in the fifth largest opening weekend of all-time.
The massive debut contributed to Disney bringing in over $200 million this weekend as the studio became the fastest to cross the $1 billion mark in domestic earnings in just 128 days, decimating the 165 day record set by Universal last year.
With an estimated $181 million opening weekend, Civil War not only scored the fifth largest opening of all-time, it is the third largest opening for a film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Boxofficemojo.com reported.
In fact, compared to the other standalone franchises in the MCU, the Captain America franchise continues to show the greatest film-over-film growth as Civil War’s opening is a 91.3% increase over the opening for the previous film ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’.
With a $250 million budget, ‘Civil War’ saw great reviews heading into the weekend (91% on RottenTomatoes), record Fandango pre-sales for a superhero film, high number of premium ticket options and 3D theaters and the premiere of two new superheroes.
Should it play out on par with the likes of ‘The Winter Soldier’, it will likely pass $300 million domestically by next Sunday (if not sooner) and could surpass $450 million overall depending on how it holds on once ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ hits theaters on May 20.
Globally the film’s total is now up to $678 million after launching internationally last weekend and bringing in an estimated $220 million from overseas markets this weekend.
It is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to 2011’s ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and 2014’s ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’.
A bunch of superheroes, many of which have been on screen in other movies, are featured in the film including Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Spiderman, Ant Man, Hawkeye, Black Panther and Scarlet Witch.
The cast includes Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Frank and William Hurt.
