While the Lucasfilm smash can safely hold on to the record for best ever opening day (and best ever Thursday night previews), Marvel’s latest has beaten it in terms of overall first-weekend numbers.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Infinity War is estimated to have taken a gargantuan $ 250 million in the US since its launch – just a hairline better than Star Wars Episode 7’s $ 248 million.
What’s more, Infinity War has also beaten the global record: its estimated $ 630 million bow is enough to comfortably topple the previous best, The Fate of the Furious.
That latter film had achieved a huge opening of $ 541.9 million worldwide last year.
Infinity War’s record has been helped by it achieving the biggest Saturday of all time in North America, soaring to around $ 83 million in just one day.
Its CinemaScore grade of ‘A’ indicates that audiences were mostly happy with what they saw – so word-of-mouth is not negatively impacting its performance.
What could be driving people out in their droves is the sheer number of spoilers: fans are flocking to see the film before they hear of its twists. Whole families, it seems, are also paying for groups of tickets; another big factor.
Will Infinity War be toppled by next year’s Avengers 4? And will either be beaten by 2019’s Star Wars Episode 9? That’s something we’ll have to wait another year to find out.
An interesting side-note is that Black Panther has had a box office spike thanks to Infinity War’s arrival.
The Chadwick Boseman-fronted cultural phenomenon already holds the record for the top grossing superhero movie ever in the US ($ 688 million) and this week rose from Number 8 to Number 5, adding another $ 4.4 million to its collection.
Marvel now is responsible for six of the Top 10 biggest opening weekends of all time; while Disney – who own both Marvel and LucasFilm – have nine of the Top 10, including the entire Top 3 (Infinity War, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
Speculation over what’s to come next in Avengers 4 will no doubt keep the hype machine going for the next year – as will the arrivals of Ant-Man and the Wasp (summer 2018) and Captain Marvel (spring 2019).
Infinity War will not face too much competition in the weeks ahead, so should be Number 1 for quite some time – in fact Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story are the next big blockbusters on the horizon.
Avengers: Infinity War is out now.
