AVENGERS INFINITY WAR Breaks $1B BOX-OFFICE Milestone in 11 Days

The release of “Avengers: Infinity War” in cinemas late last April marked the high point of the tenth-year anniversary for its monster of a box-office film franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On its US premiere’s first weekend the film brought Marvel Studios and its Disney parent a domestic take of $258.2 million, beating “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” to become the biggest box office opening of all time. With its international take of $382.7 million added in, its first-weekend total was $640.9 million. And as if to disprove the notion of superhero fatigue, its next weekend was just as epic.

According to Entertainment Weekly, weekend 2 for “Avengers: Infinity War” in theaters looks all set to earn about $112.5 million from the US and Canada, far and above its closest competitors in the same timeframe. All-time-wise, that figure falls a tad short for the second-week gross of “The Force Awakens” and its $149.2 million. However, it does edge out the $111.7 million of the former second-placer, fellow MCU installment “Black Panther”, which had only premiered earlier this year in February and serves as a direct predecessor to this film’s events. The “Infinity War” juggernaut, like its main villain, seems unstoppable.

Granted, the box office decline between the first and second weekends for the third MCU film with the Avengers is a bit bigger than “Black Panther” – 56 percent to 45 percent respectively – and is noted to be roughly equal to the earnings drop for Warner Bros and DC’s “Justice League”.

But already, as The Verge further tells it, “Avengers: Infinity War” has breached the $1 billion worldwide box-office barrier last Saturday, May 5. It set a new record as the fastest film to do such; at 11 days it beat the former king “The Force Awakens” with its 12 days. The amazing thing is that it reached that milestone before arriving at the world’s biggest movie market population-wise: China. Once “Infinity War” premieres there this coming May 11, one can only imagine the global earnings by that point in time.

“Avengers: Infinity War” gathers together most of the various superheroes introduced in solo films, together with the hero teams of the Avengers as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy. Their ultimate objective: to prevent the all-powerful cosmic titan called Thanos (Josh Brolin) from gathering the Infinity Stones that would give him the power to erase half the universe’s life-forms.

The movie has thus far received positive reviews, but the story is also acknowledged as unfinished, with a fourth “Avengers” movie still coming up next year. That will also mark the mythic conclusion of the MCU storyline as it was introduced with the first “Iron Man” film back in 2008.

Photo courtesy of wgntv.com