Captain Marvel has gone higher, further and faster than many of Marvel’s other superheroes, at least where box office is involved. The movie is already well over the $900 million week after hitting theaters earlier this month, but will it be able to hit 1 billion this weekend? It’ll be close.
First and foremost, as of March 25, Captain Marvel has already pulled in a whopping $914 million dollars worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). Box office numbers typically slow down earlier in the way and pick up closer to the weekend, so once Monday and Tuesday’s numbers are official, I’d expect it to add to the tally but not get us close to the billion dollar mark yet.
Which brings us to this weekend. Domestically, Captain Marvel is facing the behemoth that is Jordan Peele’s Us. Disney itself will also enter a bit of competition into the fold this weekend with its live action Dumbo remake spearheaded by director Tim Burton.
If you’d like to see the full list of releases so far in 2019, we have you covered.
Last weekend, Captain Marvel earned $35 million domestically, which was definitely enough for second place, but earned well below Us, which opened to $70.3 million. It’s likely that Captain Marvel’s numbers will drop domestically again, although it should do well enough that it should make a few million to add to that over $900 million total.
The worldwide box office has contributed much of the box office intake for Captain Marvel and that likely will continue into the weekend. However, Captain Marvel has already previously opened in most major markets, including China.
It has also opened in Mexico, South Korea, The UK, Brazil, France and other markets, so there’s not a lot of room for the movie to continue to squeeze out top dollar overseas. Just like the domestic market, as new and exciting movies hit theaters, the audience for older movies wanes.
The question really isn’t if Captain Marvel will be able to hit $1 billion worldwide, but when. There’s a chance the Marvel flick flies to that record this weekend, which would mean the movie has hit that box office milestone before it has even been in theaters for a whole month. However, it’s going to be close, and I think it may fall short over the weekend.
The good news is that once Captain Marvel hits a billion, it will actually be the seventh Marvel flick to achieve that massive number, so it will be big news when it happens. It should also be the start of a giant box office tally for Marvel in 2019, as the studio also has Avengers: Endgame coming. That movie should open high and could go on to make over $2 billion for Disney. Spider-Man: Far From Home and it's complicated infrastructure with Sony and Disney will also be released in 2019.
If you’d like to see the movie get there sooner rather than later, you can always catch it in theaters this weekend, perhaps even for a second or third time.
