After years of waiting, Avengers: Infinity War is finally in theaters and it should come as no surprise that the movie is cleaning up during its opening weekend. Massive ticket pre-sales and box office forecasting all indicated a big debut, and Infinity War is currently tracking to conclude the weekend with over $240 million. Whether it ends up beating Star Wars: The Force Awakens is uncertain, but Infinity War has already pushed the MCU to an incredibly impressive milestone. Collectively, all 19 films have made over $15 billion in the worldwide box office.
Ever since the release of Iron Man, Marvel Studios has been a big player in the box office, a fact that really wasn't cemented until the release of The Avengers and its complete domination of everything. The films of the MCU have gone on to make hundreds of millions of dollars individually, with a handful going on to make billions. Avengers: Infinity War will almost certainly join the latter group, having had the second biggest opening day ever, and the epic blockbuster has already pushed the MCU farther than any film franchise has gone before.
According to data collected by Box Office Mojo, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has earned a collective total of $15.1 billion globally. The MCU was already the highest grossing franchise prior to this, but it's hard to imagine anyone catching up with them now. Marvel has the numbers advantage, and it's kind of hard not to be the top dog when you put out three movies a year. The recent addition of Black Panther -- still holding strong -- only propelled this number even more.
Of course, the collective total is only going to get larger from here on out. Infinity War is only just beginning its run, and though it has some strong competition in the form of Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story entering the ring soon, it likely will have a healthy box office run. Then Ant-Man and the Wasp hits theaters in July and while that won't get Infinity War level money, it'll likely be a solid contribution. Captain Marvel arrives next and then that will take us right into Avengers 4, the end of everything that's come before. It will probably make a ridiculous amount of money.
It's been a wild and crazy ride over these last 10 years for Marvel and movie fans, so go see Avengers: Infinity War, which is in theaters right now. We're pretty crazy about the movie over here at Cinemablend. Check out our review of the movie or enjoy this breakdown of the post-credit scene and what it means. You can also enjoy our list of the 12 most shocking moments from the blockbuster and all the lingering questions we have regarding that ending.
