Up until this weekend, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was sitting at $14.81 billion worldwide in box office receipts. Marvel Studios approached that figure earlier this year when it released Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, which quickly became the MCU’s most profitable film domestically, hauling in a little over $682 million and a gigantic $1.3 billion globally.
So, it was no secret that with the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the franchise would soar over the $15 billion mark and now, it’s happened. Thanks to a huge Thursday night showing, in addition to a very solid first full day in North American theaters, Joe and Anthony Russo’s blockbuster has pushed the MCU to $15.12 billion.
As it stands, Infinity War currently has $106 million domestically and $178.5 million overseas, combining for a total of $284.4 million – and the weekend is far from over. At the moment, analysts are predicting a domestic finish at $245 million while internationally, it could pull in $300 million. That’d place it well above $500 million worldwide by Monday morning, a stunning feat and one that will only take the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole even higher.
Of course, the MCU officially got underway a decade ago, in an Iron Man post-credits scene back in 2008 when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) approached Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) to discuss the Avengers initiative. What began with Jon Favreau and RDJ has exponentially inflated, and continues its expansion to this day.
Now, ten years later, and Marvel Studios can seemingly do no wrong and though it looks like Avengers: Infinity War will end up being the studio’s biggest release yet, with some very exciting things on the way for Phase 4, who knows if it’ll stay that way for long. Regardless, there’s never been a better time to be a fan of the House of Ideas and we can’t wait to see where they take us next.
