Box Office: Marvel Overpowers ‘Fast and the Furious’ With Huge Numbers in Theaters and at Home for ‘Black Widow’
Marvel lost no momentum at the box office, despite being out of theaters for two years.
Black Widow generated an estimated $80 million in ticket sales in North America. It is the first Marvel movie to debut on Disney Plus the same day it hit theaters, and based on financial figures Disney released on Sunday, the movie has been very successful on the streaming service in its first weekend, pulling in at least $60 million in Disney+ Premier Access rentals.
The Walt Disney Co. said Sunday the superhero pic took in $78 million from international theaters for a total gross of over $215 million for its first weekend. The studio said that is its the largest opening weekend since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which debuted in 2019, prior to the pandemic. This also marks the highest domestic opening weekend for a Marvel Cinematic Universe origin story after Black Panther ($202M, 3-day) and Captain Marvel ($153.4M).
Black Widow, starring Scarlett Johansson,shuold have come out in May of 2020 but it was delayed because of the pandemic. Disney ultimately decided to release it “day and date” – on more than one platform at the same time. This isn’t unusual for pandemic movie releases; Warner Bros’ Wonder Woman 84 was released the same way, but without a premium price tag. It’s not even a first for Disney, which did the same for Cruella, but it is the first Marvel movie to attempt the hybrid strategy, and it’s by far the the most successful film released that way to date.
In North America, the previous pandemic recordholder was Universal’s F9, which debuted to $70 million a few weeks ago. Unlike Black Widow, now playing on 4,100 screens, the ninth Fast & Furious movie was exclusively in theaters. The Marvel movie did lose a bit of box office to the watch-at-homes: the ticket sales took a big fall on Saturday, earning $23.3M, which, next to its Friday (including Thursday previews) number of $39.5M, represents a 41% drop in earnings.
Still, $60M in streaming revenue over a couple days is good news. Previously, Disney has not revealed how its streaming service’s same-day offering impacted the theatrical release of a film, but now we know that this is a viable release strategy. Disney’s next Marvel film, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings will only be available in theaters, though.
It’s not clear if Disney will be offering many movies through Premier Access going forward. The only remaining Premier Access film in the pipeline (so far) is Jungle Cruise, which will be released on July 30th under both distribution methods.
In overall box office news, this is the first time since March 2020 that the total domestic box office has collected more than $100 million in ticket sales, according to data from Comscore. At present, that tally stands at $116.9 million.
Here’s the Top 5 for the weekend, where three of the five top films are from Universal.
- Black Widow (Disney) 4,160 theaters/Friday $39.5M/Saturday $23.3M/Sunday $17.2M/3-day $80M/Wk 1
- F9 (Universal) 3,649 theaters (-554), Friday $3.46M (-58% from previous Friday)/Saturday $4.24M/Sunday $3.18M/3-day $10.88M (-53%)/Total: $141.3M/ Wk 3
- Boss Baby: Family Business (Universal) 3,688 theaters (+44), Friday $2.88M (-63%)/Saturday $3.23M/Sunday $2.59M/3-day $8.7M (-47%)/total $34.7M/Wk 2
- Forever Purge (Universal) 3,058 theaters (+7), Friday $2.32M (-60%)/Saturday $2.5M/Sunday $1.88M/3-day $6.7M (-47%)/total $27.4M/Wk 1
- A Quiet Place Part II (Paramount) 2,359 (-467) Friday $975K/Saturday $1.18M/Sunday $840K/3-day: $3M (-27%)/Total: $150.7M/Wk 7
