Weekend Wrap-Up: Captain Marvel Cracks $150 million During Debut
March 12, 2019
That burst of hot air you feel is box office analysts and movie executives breathing a sigh of relief as 2019 finally has its first win in the year-over-year comparison. Captain Marvel beat expectations earning $153.43 million over the weekend. This is more than the entire box office earned last weekend, helping the box office grow 85% week-over-week to $209 million. The year-over-year growth wasn’t as explosive, but this was still 51% more than the same weekend last year. 2019 is still way behind 2018, $480 million or 22% to be more precise at $1.75 billion to $2.23 billion. However, this gap is about 10% smaller than it was this time last week, so while 2019 has a long, long way to go to catch up to 2018, it at least looks like it is possible instead of just wishful thinking.
Captain Marvel cost $152 million to make and it earned $153.43 million during its opening weekend. Those two numbers alone prove it is a financial hit; however, there’s more positive news to talk about. Firstly, this is the seventh fastest opening film in the MCU, the third biggest March debut, and already the biggest hit of 2019. Its reviews are 80% positive, which is excellent for a monster hit, while it earned an A from CinemaScore, meaning audiences liked it even more than critics did. Even short legs will get it past $350 million and close to $400 million. If its legs are just average, it will top Wonder Woman to be the biggest woman-led super hero movie of all-time.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World was pushed into second place with $14.69 million over the weekend for a total of $119.65 million after three-weeks of release. It did fall a little faster than expected, but it is still on pace to hit $150 million domestically.
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral matched expectations perfectly with $12.47 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $46.30 million. A drop-off like like this is extreme for a film aimed at more mature women, but normal for a Madea film. In fact, the film seems destined to finish on the high end for the franchise.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part also matched expectations perfectly earning $3.87 million over the weekend for a total of $97.15 million after a month of release. It is impressive for a film to remain in the top five for a month, so Warner Bros. should be happy about that. However, it missed original expectations domestically and really missed expectations internationally, so I don’t think it is going to break even any time soon.
Alita: Battle Angel managed to hold onto a spot in the top five for one last weekend with $3.22 million, lifting its running tally to $78.36 million. The film has done enough to save face and some studios might even try to emulate the film by adapting Manga / Anime titles in the future, they will just try and do so with a more reasonable production budget.
The only other film in the sophomore class was Greta, which fell 51% to $2.19 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $8.28 million. It could have been worse. In fact, we’ve seen worse already this year.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Captain Marvel, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, Alita: Battle Angel, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral, Greta, Madea, Marvel Cinematic Universe