Marvel Cinematic Universe Crosses $5 Billion Mark Domestically
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has officially crossed the $5 billion mark domestically thanks to Thor: Ragnarok‘s strong opening. The God of Thunder’s third standalone film has finally landed in North America and with good word of mouth, compelling advertising, and the always sterling Marvel brand, fans have been flocking to their nearest cinemas to find out what the buzz is all about, helping the Taika Waititi-project to nab an impressive $46 million plus just in on its first day.
Ragnarok is the 17th outing for what started as a small self-producing company in 2008. Kicked-off by the success of their first venture into filmmaking, Iron Man, Marvel Studios has quickly made a name for itself in the business with an unbroken series of back to back critical and box office successes. Now, it’s difficult to imagine what the Hollywood movie landscape would look like if the MCU didn’t exist, especially after it has basically changed the industry with more and more studios wanting to jump on the shared universe trend.
Courtesy of the box office numbers tallied by Box Office Mojo, the MCU is currently sitting at $5,005,500,714 domestic total after Ragnarok‘s first-day payday of $46,819,000. And we can only expect that the numbers are going to get significantly higher by the end of the weekend as the threequel is projected to net as much $120 million. Shall that be the case, the Chris Hemsworth-led project will push past Marvel’s last big-screen offering, Spider-Man: Homecoming, in terms of opening weekend sales, which pocketed $117 million on its debut weekend back in the summer. Marvel’s highest domestic grosser remains the first Avengers ($623M) followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron ($459M), Iron Man 3 ($409M) and Captain America: Civil War ($408M) — all of which have eventually crossed the $1 billion dollar mark in terms of total box office.
As the film studio celebrates its 10th year since first making a big splash in the industry with Iron Man, it seems like the MCU is only getting started. After Ragnarok, a slew of films is already on its docket including its most ambitious undertaking yet, Avengers: Infinity War and its still-untitled sequel, Avengers 4. Both directed by the Russo brothers, the ensemble flicks will be the culmination of everything that has transpired in the shared cinematic universe in the last decade. We still don’t know much what happens beyond that, but we assume that Kevin Feige and his cohorts at Marvel Studios are already plotting what’s next for the fan-favorite superhero franchise.
