‘Thor: Ragnarok’ On Track To Become Third Marvel Movie To Top $800 Million In 2017

by | Apr 19, 2018 | MARVEL NEWS

With roughly $794 million in worldwide box office after today, Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok will easily surpass $800 million sometime around Thursday of this week. Next weekend should see director Taika Waititi’s Lord of Thunder blockbuster cross the $810 million mark, on its way to a final tally somewhere in the neighborhood of $825+/- million, good enough to make it the third-highest grossing superhero movie this year and likely the all-around eighth-highest grossing picture of 2017 by the end of its run.

The MCU is having a spectacular year, their biggest since Marvel Studios kicked off the shared cinematic world with 2008’s Iron Man. Now 17 films deep into that unprecedented overarching franchise success, Marvel has topped $1.4 billion at the box office every single year from 2012 onward, and this year flew past the previous highest-grossing year for the studio by a wide margin. The $2.5 billion in global receipts for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok will be more than half a billion bucks higher than 2015’s combo of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, which racked up a combined $1.9 billion.

Thor: Ragnarok is one of Marvel’s best-reviewed releases, its 92% Rotten Tomatoes score putting it in a three-way tie with Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Avengers for second place in the MCU, behind the 94% score Iron Man received. Ragnarok is also destined to be the fifth-highest grossing MCU movie outside of the Avengers team-up franchise.

At Cinemascore, Ragnarok received an A grade from audiences, giving Marvel perfect A’s across the board this year for all three of their releases. By the way, Ragnarok is the ninth MCU movie in a row to get an A from audiences. The only Marvel films that didn’t receive either an A or A+ grade were The Incredible Hulk (A-), Thor (B+), and Thor: The Dark World (A-).

With less than $23 million separating Ragnarok from hitting $300 million at domestic theaters, it appears the film will either barely make or barely miss that target. Obviously the numbers are fantastic, and nobody can make a serious claim that falling a few dollars shy of $300 million would be any sort of failure, but it’d certainly be an added feather in Marvel’s cap if it reaches that figure.

‘Black Panther’ Box Office: Records And Milestones From Its First Two Months

by | Apr 19, 2018 | MARVEL NEWS

This will probably be the last of these weekly “Here are all the new milestones Walt Disney and Marvel’s Black Panther has set” posts, mostly because it is essentially done setting new records. It might pass The Last Jedi on the global all-time grossers list, it may get as high as 30th place on the inflation-adjusted domestic list (ahead of The Dark Knight and Thunderball, natch) and it may get a little higher on the list of leggy $100 million+ openers. But otherwise, Black Panther is presumably done setting records for the moment. So, with that in mind, I went through all my weekly “new records” posts and, well, if you want a giant list of (mostly domestic) records that the film broke or almost broke, abridged (but still the longest post of the day) for one easy and convenient list of the film’s first two months of theatrical release, here you go. I can’t promise I caught every single one, but it’s pretty darn close to complete.

5th-biggest opening weekend of all time:

With a $202 million Fri-Sun frame, it sits behind only The Avengers ($207m), Jurassic World ($208m), Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220m) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($248m). If you adjust for inflation, Black Panther will end up in seventh place behind only The Dark Knight ($202.3m adjusted), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($203.9m), The Last Jedi ($220m), Jurassic World ($232m), The Avengers ($234m) and The Force Awakens ($261m).

Biggest non-sequel opening weekend:

Black Panther (an almost entirely stand-alone movie existing in the MCU universe) broke the opening weekend record for a non-sequel/prequel, displacing The Hunger Games which opened with $152 million in March of 2012 (in 2D).

Biggest solo superhero launch of all time:

Since it opened above the $174 million opening weekend of Iron Man 3, Black Panther has the new milestone for a solo superhero Fri-Sun debut.

Biggest February opening weekend:

The previous high-water mark for a February opening weekend was Deadpool with $132 million over the Fri-Sun frame and $152m over the Fri-Mon Presidents Day weekend. While Black Panther lacked the Valentine’s Day advantage (Feb. 14 fell on a Saturday that year), it played in 3D and had a PG-13 rating. It earned around 52% more than Deadpool and 148% more than Fifty Shades of Grey (which also had a Valentine’s Day Saturday advantage).

Biggest pre-summer opening weekend:

Black Panther easily dethroned Batman v Superman ($166 million) as the biggest pre-summer opener of all time.

2nd-Biggest comic book superhero opening weekend:

Among all comic book superhero movie opening weekends, the Fri-Sun frame stands behind only The Avengers ($207 million).

2nd-biggest four-day gross:

With at least $242 million in four days, it sits right between The Last Jedi ($241m) and The Force Awakens ($288m) among the biggest four-day totals.

3rd-biggest non-summer opening weekend:

Of the four biggest debut weekends, only two of them (The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi) opened outside of the core summer season.

8th-biggest Friday and 8th-biggest single-day gross:

Among single-day grosses, Friday grosses and opening day grosses, Black Panther’s $75.8 million Friday sits behind only The Avengers ($80.8m), Batman v Superman ($81.5m), Jurassic World ($81.9m), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($91m), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($91m), The Last Jedi ($104.6m) and The Force Awakens ($119.1m).

4th-biggest Saturday gross:

After its boffo opening day, Black Panther earned $65.8 million on Saturday. That was a mere 13% drop from opening day or a 31% jump if you take out the Thursday previews. It’s also the 24th-biggest single-day gross of all time and the fourth-biggest Saturday figure, between Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($63m) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($68.2m), The Avengers ($69.5m) and Jurassic World ($69.4m).  If you count inflation, it’s still in eighth place.

2nd-biggest Sunday gross:

Panther’s $60.096 million first Sunday gross is down just -8% from its first Saturday and $9.5m more than the “pure” $50.6m Friday gross. It is the 33rd-biggest single-day gross. But it’s also the second-biggest Sunday gross of all time, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($60.5m).

Biggest Monday gross:

Black Panther has earned $40.167 million on its fourth day of release. That is the 99th-biggest single-day gross of all time. That also give the film the biggest Monday gross of all time, ahead of even The Force Awakens‘ $40.1m fourth-day gross. Even if you account for inflation, it’s the third-biggest Monday behind The Force Awakens ($42m adjusted) and Spider-Man 2 ($40.8m adjusted).

And that’s just the milestones it set in its first four days of domestic release. We can now move into the second weekend, where it snagged a whole bunch of new records and milestones.

2nd-biggest non-opening weekend:

Black Panther earned $111.6 million in its second Fri-Sun frame. That’s the second-biggest non-opening weekend of all time, between Jurassic World ($106m) and The Force Awakens ($149m).

Smallest 2nd-weekend drop for a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie:

Sure, Black Panther had a slightly larger second-weekend drop than Blade (-36%), Spider-Man (-37%) and Wonder Woman (-43%), but that’s essentially it when it comes to second-weekend holds for big-scale comic book flicks that opened on a Friday.

2nd-best 2nd-weekend hold for a $200 million+ opener:

Of the five $200 million+ openers (Black Panther, The Avengers, Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens), only The Force Awakens and Black Panther avoided the “$100m losers club.” Only The Force Awakens (which had Christmas Day as its second Friday and fell 39%) had a better hold among the very biggest of big openers.

2nd-biggest non-opening Saturday gross:

Black Panther earned $47.6 million on its second Saturday, a 65% jump from its second Friday and a mere 27% drop from its first $65m-grossing Saturday. That’s also the second-biggest non-opening Saturday ever, behind only The Force Awakens’ $57.6m day-nine gross.

4th-fastest to $300 million in North America:

Black Panther crossed the $300 million mark on its eighth day of release, the same number of days that it took Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Jurassic World to do likewise. Its eight-day gross ($320m) put it just below The Last Jedi ($321m) and Jurassic World ($325m) while only Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($325m in five days) did it faster.

Avengers: Infinity War’ Directors Address Silver Surfer Rumors

by | Apr 19, 2018 | MARVEL NEWS

Recently, a rumor popped up claiming that Marvel’s Silver Surfer would appear in Avengers: Infinity War, which was a dubious claim, to put it lightly.

However, thanks to the press tour for Infinity War taking place in the UK, we now have directors the Russo Bros. Weighing in

on the matter.

As Joe Russo told

“I don’t think we own Silver Surfer. But it’s

fan-wish fulfillment and, you know, if this Disney-Fox deal goes through there’s going

to be

a lot more characters coming into the Marvel universe, so some of those crazy fan theories might come true.”

So there you have it: As most fans surmised when this rumor first appeared: the logistics of Marvel character ownership makes it all but impossible for Silver Surfer to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – at least at this time. A

s the Russos indicate, the deal for Disney to acquire 20th Century Fox is still in the works – but when it’s done, then we could indeed see the Surfer (and so many other characters) finally joining the MCU.

The reason this particular fan theory is running so strongly is that because in the original “Infinity Gauntlet” storyline, it is the Silver Surfer who comes crashing to Earth, falling into Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, with a dire w

arning abo

ut Thanos’ mission to gather the Infinity Gems. In the MCU, that role of a hero crashing into Doctor Strange’s lair will be fulfilled by Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, for the obvious reason that Silver Surfer is not available.

20th Century Fox got the Silver Surfer along wi

th the other characters connected to the Fantastic Four franchise – one of two franchises the studio owns. The other would be th

e X-Men mo

vie franchise, with its extensive stable of characters. Both of those franchises are particularly rich with characters (heroes and v

illains) who have helped flesh out th

e Marvel

Cosmic Universe – a par

ticular brand that has grown strong for Marvel Studios, thanks to properties like Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy (

and soon, Captain Marvel).

That’s all to say: expect Silver Surfer, Galactus, the

Skrulls, Annihulus and many others to one day appear in Marvel movies

, alongside the likes of Thor and Thanos.

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther is now playing in theaters. Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018. It is followed by A

nt-Man and The

Wasp on July 6, 2018,

Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, Avengers 4 on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Ho

mecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.

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