It Took The Entire Kitchen Sink, But Marvel Has Reclaimed The Highest Grossing Opening Weekend of All Time Record

Going into Summer 2018, there was no question whatsoever whether or not Avengers: Infinity War would end up being a success. There’s a reason we all chose it as the de facto box office champ in our Summer Movie Wager, after all — there was no chance in hell this movie wasn’t going to make money. In fact, the only question we were all asking about Infinity War’s box office was just how well it would do — were we just talking pretty massive, or record-breaking massive? We’re only one weekend into the film’s release, but the answer has already presented itself as the latter, with the film already breaking one of the most important box office records out there: the highest grossing opening weekend of all time record.

Which, as you might recall, used to belong to Marvel not too long ago. The studio first earned the laudable accomplishment back when The Avengers came out in 2012, snagging an (at the time) insane opening weekend of $207 million. The team-up film was able to hold onto that record for years, with even its sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, unable to topple the number. But in June of 2015, a challenger appeared from out of nowhere — long-in-development reboot/sequel, Jurassic World. Apparently, demand for dino action was at a high with audiences, as the film managed to barely take the record away from Avengers with an opening total of $208 million. Jurassic World wasn’t able to hold on to that record for long, though, as a little movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out mere six months later to take the crown — and by a huge margin too (over $39 million, in fact.) For a long time, it was unclear what if any big movie could ever top such an insane number.

But leave it to the crossover film to end all crossover films to do such a thing. Even with estimates putting it just slightly beneath The Force Awaken’s opening (between $225 to $245 million were the predicted numbers), the film managed to outpace its expectations by a significant degree. Taking in a total of $257 million in its first three days of release (well, four if you count Thursday previews as a separate day…which Hollywood for some reason doesn’t), Infinity War indeed has a gross to match its scale. And things look even better when you factor in its worldwide launch — at a total of $640 million, it easily became the highest grossing global opening of all-time, surpassing previous record holder Fate of the Furious (yes, really.) That’s even more impressive when you consider that the film didn’t have a China opening, as it won’t be bowing in the Middle Kingdom until May 11. Then again, China seems to be the only place that DIDN’T get the film this weekend, what with Disney’s decision a few months back to push the film up in many major markets.

Either way, Disney certainly won out no matter how you slice it. As I wrote about back at the beginning of the month: the Mouse House has been working overtime to sell Infinity War as the event film to end all event films. And the gigantic opening weekend take, both domestically and globally, certainly proves their work paid off.

The only question now, really, is whether or not the film will prove to have legs. On that, I’m rather torn. While there’s a part of me that believes the film isn’t as crowdpleasing as Avengers, Force Awakens, or even Jurassic World, I certainly know that my first instinct after seeing the film was the desire to see it again. Is that the case for many others? Time will tell, but if it wants to beat current MCU champ Black Panther, it will have to play the long haul, not just the opening sprint. Case in point: Black Panther is still in the Top 5 this weekend, even with Infinity War coming out. Either way, Disney is facing a competition amongst themselves, no matter how you slice it. I doubt they (or Marvel for that matter) have much to complain about no matter which film ends up on top.