Box office roundup – April 6, 2014 – "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" brings summer heat with record breaking opening weekend
Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)
1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – $96 million [debut week] Everyone was expecting the sequel to “Captain America: The First Avenger” to do well and it easily lived up to those expectations shattering the record for best April opening previously held by “Fast Five” ($86.1 million in 2011).
Chris Evans’ third time as the patriotic Avenger received the predicted post “Marvel’s The Avengers” bump. “Iron Man 3” earned an astonishing 95% more than “Iron Man 2” while “Thor: The Dark World” posted a 44% increase over “Thor.” “The Dark World” opened to $85.7 million and finished with a worldwide $644 million total.
Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson)
Beyond the bump from “Avengers,” the film fared well with critics. On rottentomatoes.com, it’s at 89% freshness, good for third best in the Marvel Studios’ Avenger films — trailing only “Iron Man’s” 93% and “Avengers'” 92% and with an “A” CinemaScore, audiences are loving it as well so expect “Winter Soldier” to continue raking in big business in the upcoming weeks.
Globally, the film brought in another $107 million leading to a worldwide total of $303 million in 10 days. The $207 million international haul so far is more than the $193 million “First Avenger” earned in its entire international run. “First Avenger” earned a decent worldwide $370 million in total, but “Winter Soldier” looks like a solid bet to at least double that haul at this rate.
2. Noah – $17 million [2nd week; $72.3 million in total] Cap’s shield wrecked some damage on last week’s champ as it sunk nearly 70 percent from its opening weekend. There’s not much coming by way of significant competition so Russell Crowe’s latest should stay in the Top 3 at least (family film “Rio 2” is the only significant threat) for the next couple of weeks.
Will (Ben Lloyd Hughes), Christina (Zoe Kravitz) and Tris (Shailene Woodley) enjoy a night out.
3. Divergent – $13 million [3rd week; $114 million] Shailene Woodley’s YA film cracked $100 million to fully prove its franchise viability, but it’s kinda amazing seeing the power of the Avengers brand as “Winter Soldier” nearly earned “Divergent’s” gross in one weekend.
4. God’s Not Dead – $7.7 million [3rd week; $30 million in total] The religious hit film held up the strongest of any of the holdovers dropping just 6% from last week.
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel – $6.1 million [5th week; $33 million in total] With an aggressive roll-out of 1,200 theaters, Wes Anderson’s latest continues to be a strong performer.
A very strong opening weekend for ‘Winter Soldier’ indeed Jeff, with strong word of mouth and good repeat business it should display great legs. A run of 3-4 weeks at No.1 would not surprise me at all, in fact I expect that to happen. Saw it twice already and it’s absolutely fantastic, it’s just masterful film making in everyway. The performances are all top notch with Evans, Jackson and Johannson giving their best performances yet. Mackie and the legendary Redford we’re outstanding new additions to the franchise with amazing performances. After one viewing I was already convinced this was one the top 3 films from the Marvel studios and one the Top 5 CBM’s I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely great and it’s neck and neck with the first Iron Man film, it’s hard between those two for me. “The Avengers” though is still top dog for me, the epicness of that film and the heroes all coming together on the big screen together in amazing fashion just resonates to strongly with me Jeff. But ‘Winter Soldier’ is an definite 10/10 for me, and I don’t say that much. After so many drastic changes in this film, I really can’t wait to see what happens in AOU.
I’m loving hearing how many people have seen it again/plan to see it again. Definitely think this will have some staying power with literally the only competition for the month being “Rio 2.” I’m learning not to underestimate the power of the family audience dollar.
Even if people don’t think it’s the best, I’m not hearing anyone who said it’s not in the Top 5 at least.
Heck, this movie got me interested in Agents of SHIELD again. LOL
I think “Rio 2” will open up pretty strong, it will most likely reach 40 plus million this weekend. I think with Cap 2’s strong word of mouth it’s going to display very strong legs starting this weekend with a 50 plus million weekend most likely. I believe it will perform similarly like the first ‘Iron Man’ film did when it opened with 99 million and followed the second weekend with 51 million.
I’ll say this Jeff, if “Rio 2” doesn’t beat ‘Cap 2’ this weekend Cap might make a 4-week run at the top until TASM2 drops next month.
Agreed. That’s really the only threat to a month-long reign for Cap.
i agree. The word of mouth has been on fire. No one has not anytime bad to say about it except a couple of critics on the technical side (blah blah blah) Some are calling it the best. I put it behind avengers as that had to happen to draw out a great movie for captain america.
I’m wondering how Guardians of the Galaxy is going to compare now. Iron Man 3 had the benefit of following Avengers with the most popular Avenger, but GOG may have a hard time matching up with this collection of unknowns.
Yeah, I’m not saying every critic has to like the film and are not entitled to their own opinions because they certainly are. It’s just with some of the review I’ve seen I get the idea that some(not all) off those critics we’re trying to be slick by giving the film a bad review just to bring some attention to themselves, now if I’m wrong here I’m wrong, but I really wonder about that. I put it behind ‘The Avengers’ also as the next best film in the MCU, but I do think ‘Winter Soldier’ and the first ‘Iron Man’ are pretty much neck and neck for second place in my opinion.
I think playing up the humor from the trailer this weekend is the way to go. People just kind laughed at a goofy space story. Dont know how this is going to go… quite frankly I know when thanos is your goal you have to cross over into that strange space but for me.. Im like really?? You mean heros for hire is such a hard concept? Black panther ??, where the hell is namor? Otherwise Marvel cant do no wrong. I just think I will be skipping it though.. Had a binge fest of EMH, they really laid a lot of ground work with that series. I guess the ant man movie will have to follow the episode to steal an ant man somewhat. Im warming up more to that. But who knows, I get bored GOG is out maybe I will see it
Yeah I was looking more forward to seeing Black Panther, Dr. Strange and Ms. Marvel on the big screen compared to GOTG, and I still am. But I am looking more forward to seeing GOTG than I was a year ago, so i’ll admit that it has my interest. It is the riskiest movie for Marvel yet, so they would be wise to make sure the movie audiences know that Thanos is still lurking in the background and he’s coming full steam ahead soon. Namor is a tough situation because Universal still holds his rights, so Marvel Studios can either partner up with Universal or buy his rights back and introduce Namor in their universe, or just be smart(like I’m sure they are) and wait for Namor’s rights to revert back to them which I hear is not that far away, maybe another year or two. Universal won’t do anything because Namor is all they have, he’s not a big known property like Spider-Man, X-Men or to a lesser extent Fantastic Four, and with out any connections to the Defenders or Avengers, it won’t work on the big screen. Spidey and the X-Men are strong enough properties with a great rogue of characters where they can survive on their own, Namor has absolutely no chance at that or exceeding. He’s that character who will only succeed when his rights revert back to Marvel so he can than be connected with Avengers and other big characters. And yes I really do want to see a Namor The Submariner film, but that’s only going to happen when his rights revert back to Marvel.