There’s currently little doubt that Avengers: Infinity War will be the biggest release of 2018, and early box office projections have the team-up movie on track for a $200 million-plus opening weekend. Marvel has already scored one slam-dunk this year with the release of Black Panther, which has so far grossed a staggering $1.28 billion worldwide – eclipsing early box office projections.

Avengers: Infinity War is the nineteenth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and will serve as the culmination of 10 years’ worth of world-building. Cosmic supervillain Thanos (Josh Brolin) will finally come to Earth to capture the Infinity Stones, with the goal of completing his Infinity Gauntlet and wiping out half of all life in the galaxy. In order to stop him, the Avengers will need to come together again after being fractured in Captain America: Civil War, and they’ll need a little help from the Guardians of the Galaxy as well.

It looks like Thanos will be bringing a massive payload with him, as THR reports that Avengers: Infinity War is currently tracking for a debut north for $200 million, and estimates could climb even higher in the coming weeks. The report notes that Disney insiders are being more cautious, suggesting a ballpark of $175-200 million – similar to Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s $191 million opening weekend. However, given that Infinity War is bringing together so many superheroes (including Black Panther, who is still riding the high of his solo movie), we can probably expect Infinity War to outdo Age of Ultron considerably.

Upon its release in 2012, The Avengers became the fifth-highest grossing movie of all time, and scored a $207 million opening weekend. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Infinity War to match that, or even outdo it – especially with inflation on its side. The sequel’s release date was moved up by a week at the beginning of March, which gives it three clear weeks with little competition at the box office until Deadpool 2 arrives to challenge it on May 18th.

Although Avengers: Infinity War is going to be fairly critic-proof, we’ll have a better idea of what to expect from its opening weekend once the review embargo lifts on April 24th. No matter how many superheroes Marvel brings together in one place, word of mouth will ultimately mean the difference between it becoming the highest-grossing MCU movie so far, or merely one of the top three.

KEY RELEASE DATES
Avengers: Infinity War / The Avengers 3 release date: Apr 27, 2018
Ant-Man & The Wasp release date: Jul 6, 2018
Captain Marvel release date: Mar 8, 2019
The Avengers 4 / Untitled Avengers Movie release date: May 3, 2019
Untitled Spider-Man: Homecoming Sequel release date: Jul 5, 2019