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Love & Thunder Box Office Opening Highest Ever For Thor Marvel Movies
Thor: Love and Thunder won the weekend box office with a franchise-best for the Thor films. The fourth film in the Thor franchise and the 29th film in the MCU sees Taika Waititi return to the Thor franchise after the critical and box office success of Thor: Ragnarok. After multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film finally hit theaters in July, a month that Marvel Studios has in the past released films like Captain America: The First Avenger, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.
As one of the summer's most anticipated movies, opening weekend projections for Thor: Love and Thunder were as high as $150 million. This made sense as each Thor film has opened bigger than the previous entry, showing both the strength of the MCU and the audience's affinity for the character. In 2011, Thor opened to an impressive $65 million and two years later, Thor: The Dark World grew off the success of both the previous Thor and The Avengers to open with $85 million. It came as a surprise to many when Thor: Ragnarok opened at $122 million back in 2017 as it was the first time the character opened above $100 million, and with Waititi returning to direct Thor: Love and Thunder, Marvel was hoping box office lightning would strike twice.
According to THR, Thor: Love and Thunder had a $143 million opening weekend and set a new record for the Thor franchise. These early estimates place it just behind the opening weekend for Jurassic World: Dominion ($145 million), but if it comes out ahead by the time final numbers are counted on Monday, it could give Marvel Studios the three biggest opening weekends of all time since the COVID-19 pandemic behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260 million) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4 million). In the international market Thor: Love and Thunder brought in $159 million, bringing its global opening weekend to $302 million.
Thor: Love and Thunder is the second-biggest opening weekend of 2022, beating other high-profile blockbusters like The Batman ($134 million) and Top Gun: Maverick ($126 million). Directly following The Minions: The Rise of Gru's opening weekend of $107 million meant for two consecutive box office weekends where a film has opened to above $100 million, a great sign for box office recovery. It shows how far both Marvel Studios and audience comfort has gone as this same weekend back in 2021 they released Black Widow in both theaters and Disney+, which at the time had the best opening weekend of the pandemic with $80 million.
The real question is how well will Thor: Love and Thunder hold. Word of mouth on the film has been mixed, with it earning a B+ CinemaScore from opening day audiences and the critical reaction on Rotten Tomatoes being lower than most. This could mean a massive drop-off in attendance on the second weekend. The following weekend sees Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, Where The Crawdad Sings, and Marcel the Shell With Shoes On all opening in wide release. It is entirely likely Thor: Love and Thunder will maintain the top spot in its second weekend, but it is unlikely it will have the same hold that Top Gun: Maverick has had all summer.
