The newest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is here and the god of thunder appears to be storming the box office. It’s not exactly news that a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie had a big night at the box office/ Art this point, the only question is how Thor: Love and Thunder compared to other blockbuster movies, and so far, it’s looking pretty good, as the film brought in just short of $30 million at the domestic box office.
$29 million is the official number according to Deadline. That’s good enough for fifth best among MCU films. However, that does put it behind the last two Marvel movies, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as well as the two big entries, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Still, while Thor 4 may not be quite as strong as the other recent entries, the numbers are nothing to ignore.
Thor: Love and Thunder is projected to do about $150 million domestically over the weekend, with about an equal amount coming from overseas. It should make for a solid global opening weekend and the most successful Thor movie to date. It should make for another solid MCU win, even if it doesn’t set a lot of records. This will likely set up even more movies for Chris Hemsworth as Thor as, without getting into spoilers, it doesn’t appear this will be the last we see of this particular Avenger.
Critics aren’t quite as in love with Thor: Love and Thunder as they were Thor: Ragnarok, but as is often the case, the general audience doesn’t really care what the critics think. The audience is not only going to go see the new movie no matter what, the early response appears to be that most people love this new Thor movie as much if not more than the previous entry.
It will be interesting to see just where Thor: Love and Thunder comes in this weekend. We’re still very much trying to get a handle on the post-pandemic box office and how it works. Clearly the movie is off to a good start but it could also be that the box office is front loaded and things will slow down over the course of the weekend.
While we know the audience for Marvel is still there, little things, like the fact that this movie isn’t promising more answers about the multiverse as the last two movies did, may be enough for some to wait for the movie to arrive on Disney+, something that is now happening faster than ever before anyway.
Now the next Marvel sequels, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and The Marvels, will have to see if they can match the god of thunder.
