Back at the beginning of 2019, the long-range box office forecasting on Disney’s Captain Marvel had the debut flick for Brie Larson’s ultra-powerful character tracking at a massive $140 million opening weekend. We’re now only a few weeks away from seeing the heroine that Nick Fury called when the need was most dire on the big screen, and it’s looking like Captain Marvel could make less than we thought opening weekend, coming in around $100 million.
The early tracking estimates are largely confident Captain Marvel will hit the $100 million mark in its opening weekend, according to Deadline. The metrics, like the fact that the trailer was viewed 109 million times in the first 24 hours, indicate that there is a lot of interest in this movie.
An opening weekend of $100 million is way below the huge $140 million that was predicted in January, but the closer you get to a film’s actual release, the more reliable the tracking becomes. Therefore, this $100 million estimate is probably a safer bet than the previous long-range prediction.
That said, it is always worth mentioning that box office prognosticating is more guesswork than science. This was made evident recently when Glass was tracking at upwards of $70 million opening weekend and came in at around $40 million. The box office is in a bit of a funk right now and one of Deadline’s sources indicated that Captain Marvel could make anywhere from $80 million to $120 million.
Despite the drop from the previous tracking, $100 million would still be a major win for Captain Marvel’s opening weekend. Although Captain Marvel is a huge MCU release, it is also an origin film for a superhero we haven’t seen onscreen before. The only MCU origin films to pass $100 million in their opening weekend were Iron Man with $102 million in 2008 and Black Panther last year with $202 million.
Anecdotally, it does seem like Captain Marvel has a fair bit going for it that could elevate it to the $100 million mark and possibly beyond. For one, it’s Marvel’s first female-led superhero film, and there is certainly an appetite for that as Wonder Woman’s $103 million opening weekend showed.
Captain Marvel is also arguably the year’s first, real, big name blockbuster, and it has been a while since the last MCU movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp last July. The trailers have also been solid, including a Super Bowl spot and Captain Marvel was teed up for success about as well as a film can be with the tease in Avengers: Infinity War’s end-credits scene.
We only have a few more weeks to find out if Carol Danvers indeed goes higher, further, faster at the box office. Captain Marvel opens on March 8. Check out our 2019 release schedule to see everything else you can look forward to this year, and stay tuned to CinemaBlend for all your movie news.
