Captain Marvel has strong start at box office
Superhero flick likely to have 6th-biggest opening weekend
Oscar winner Brie Larson delivered a superhero-sized jolt to theatres with her portrayal of the comic-book character Captain Marvel, waking up fans of blockbuster movies from their long winter slumber.
The film from Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel division opened with North American weekend sales of $153 million, researcher Comscore Inc. estimated Sunday. Forecasts ranged from a low of $125 million from Disney to $175 million, the mean projection from Box Office Pro. Captain Marvel also opened in international markets, and Disney estimated the global weekend take at $455 million, the sixth-biggest ever. (Figures in U.S. dollars.)
The domestic tally makes Captain Marvel the biggest opening of the year and could signal a rebound for theatre owners, whose sales were down 26 per cent year to date as of last weekend. Disney, the box office leader in recent years, has several potential blockbusters lined up in coming weeks, including a Dumbo live-action remake later this month and Avengers: Endgame in late April.
It’s been a longish dry spell for fans of big action films, which explains the drought in sales for theatre owners. So far this year, the biggest weekend film was How to Train Your Dragon at $55 million in February. The last big hit was Warner Bros.’s Aquaman, which opened in late December to $68 million and went on to collect $1.14 billion worldwide.
Captain Marvel breaks new ground for Disney. It’s the first female-led superhero movie from Marvel, the master of big-screen comic-book films. The studio also enlisted a woman to co-direct the picture, in another first for the company.
Not surprisingly, no other major studio opened a new film in competition with Captain Marvel. Larson, 29, won the Oscar for best actress for 2015’s Room, about a woman and her young son held captive for seven years.
Meanwhile, Larson played along with fans in New Jersey when she appeared at a theatre Saturday night in Clifton, about 16 kilometres west of New York.
The North Jersey Record reports theatre patrons at the AMC Theater initially didn’t seem to notice Larson, who was dressed in a Captain Marvel sweat suit. But soon her appearance caused a stir, and numerous photos posted online showed her posing with fans and even serving popcorn from a concession stand.
Bloomberg