Remember “superhero fatigue”? Ah, that was a funny concept borne out of a lot of lazy analysis and haterade for the Marvel machine. Audiences have braved a friggin’ pandemic to watch a Marvel film, and now that things are semi-back to normal, shit has just kept on rollin’ with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Analysts are projecting a $175M weekend based on a spell-binding $36M in Thursday previews. That’s good for the eighth-highest Thursday preview total in history, behind Avengers: Infinity War‘s $39M in 2018.
So what’s #1? More Marvel! Avengers: Endgame rules them all with $60M, followed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $57M, and Spider-Man: No Way Home with $50M. The rest of the pack includes The Last Jedi at $45M, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 with $43.5M, and The Rise of Skywalker with $40M.
Further adding to the good news for Multiverse of Madness is $60M in domestic presales, plus another $85M internationally. Overseas, the film could surpass $125M for the weekend.
The sequel looks poised to surpass 2016’s Doctor Strange, which finished its run with $677M worldwide.
