As virtually everyone expected, Captain Marvel exploded at the box office this weekend, Box Office Mojo is reporting. The latest superhero extravaganza from Marvel scored an estimated $153 million, easily giving it the best opening of the year so far. It also surpassed How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World as the biggest movie of 2019.
Projections for Captain Marvel were all over the place, with some tracking indicating it would make around $100 million while more bullish predictions claimed it could reach $200 million. In the end, the Brie Larson actioner fell somewhere in the middle, and currently has the 19th best opening weekend of all time if estimates hold up.
As is always the case with Marvel, Captain Marvel received a warm critical reception, even if the response wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic as it was for 2017’s Wonder Woman, which wrapped things up with a huge $412 million stateside. It’s hard to say if Marvel will be able to reach that number or not. While there’s nothing looking to dethrone it next weekend (unless Wonder Park is a lot bigger than expected), the following week brings the much buzzed horror film Us, and Disney’s own Dumbo–which has received a strong marketing campaign–is set to fly into theaters at the end of the month. Next up for Marvel Avengers: Endgame, which is already tracking for a record-breaking opening weekend. It arrives April 26th.
Holding onto a solid second place was How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which continued its solid box office run, now sitting with a healthy total gross of $119 million. The news gets even better for Toothless and Hiccup internationally, however, as it has current global take of $435 million. Speaking of worldwide hits, Alita: Battle Angel is still kicking butt overseas, with a total of $382 million.
Finally, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part continued to inch towards the $100 million mark, with a current tally of $97 million. Unlike Alita, however, Lego Movie 2 hasn’t been wowing overseas, where its only made $67 million. Still no word on if Billion Brick Race is still opening this Memorial Day weekend or not, but since we haven’t heard anything about it lately, it seems almost certain that it will at least get pushed back.
Final figures are due tomorrow.