Marvel is riding high as Captain America: The Winter Soldier breaks the previous April opening weekend record, bringing in $96.2 million all while the international total grows to $207.1 million. So, yes, after only one weekend in domestic release and two weekends worldwide, Winter Soldier is now only $63 million shy of Captain America: The First Avenger‘s worldwide total from 2011. The Avengers franchise is a monster!
If you were wondering, the previous April opening record was Fast Five with $86.1 million, which is to assume 3D and IMAX screenings are what pushed Captain over the top. The film also scored an “A” CinemaScore, but still expect something around a 57% drop next weekend as that seems to be the pattern. Nevertheless, Marvel is dominating at the moment, no doubt about it.
Here’s a question for you though, will Warner Bros. have to stand up and take note of Captain America‘s success when it comes to their plans for a May 6, 2016 release of Batman vs. Superman? Right now Captain America 3 is set for the same date and it seems there is quite the audience for the Captain.
In second, Noah suffered a massive 60% drop, bringing in only $17 million as its cume now sits at $72.3 million. Not good. Seems those that brought the CinemaScore down to a “C” were more encouraging than the lofty reviews.
In its third weekend, Divergent dropped 49%, bringing in $13 million as its total has now climbed to $114 million. We will definitely see the sequels to this franchise, but I wonder if they will get any better than this first installment.
Continuing to make news is God’s Not Dead, which only dropped 12% this weekend after dropping only 4.5% last weekend. In its third weekend the religion-fueled film added another $7.7 million to its total, which is now up to $32.5 million. Still no word on a budget, however, as far as I’ve seen, but it couldn’t have been much.
The best per theater result this weekend belonged to A24’s limited roll out of Brian Grazer‘s Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johansson in her second new film in release this weekend. In only four theaters the film brought in $140,000 for a $35,000 average.
Next weekend sees a wide swath of films hitting theaters including Cuban Fury, Draft Day, Oculus and Rio 2 among several other limited releases. I expect Rio 2 to be massive, which means we could have an even bigger weekend in seven days.
