The road to premiere for Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel†had not been smooth. The attempts at meaningfully putting the titular character’s feminist spin from the comics in promotions have been ill-received. Online trolls retaliated by maliciously tanking the movie’s ratings on Rotten Tomatoes before it even released. But come March 8 and the following weekend, the box office positively vindicates.
Entertainment Weekly reports that “Captain Marvel†starring Brie Larson has established a solid beginning for its cinematic run in US and Canadian. From its Friday premiere across 4,310 theaters to Sunday, the movie has racked up $153 million, becoming the first big release of 2019.
With those numbers, the penultimate chapter of the MCU’s long-running Phase 3 is now the second-biggest debut of the franchise, trailing only behind last year’s epic “Black Panther†($242.1 million). It’s a notable triumph for Ryan Fleck’s co-director Anna Boden, the first female in charge of an MCU film, and starring a woman to boot.
Outside North America, “Captain Marvel†made $302 million in the rest of the world for a total $455 million global first weekend. Part of that take is the first-day gross in China: $34 million, the third-biggest opening of any MCU film in the country. In a way, it proves the film can do what “Wonder Woman†did for Warner-DC in 2017, to confirm that female-led superhero films can earn big.
“Captain Marvel†sees Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, a half-human half-alien superhuman agent of the Kree Empire, who must protect Earth from becoming a battleground between Kree and Skrulls. It also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, and Ben Mendelsohn.