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Los Angeles — What superhero fatigue? Disney and Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, the 13th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has strong-armed its way to becoming the fifth-highest domestic opening ever according to comScore estimates Sunday.
The film grossed a massive $181.8m this weekend, bumping Iron Man 3 out of the top five all time debuts. Civil War now ranks right below Marvel's The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, which hold the third and fourth place spots.
It's nearly double the opening of the previous Captain America film, The Winter Soldier, which opened to $95m in April 2014, but that is at least partially attributable to the fact that Civil War is basically an Avengers movie in disguise.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Civil War sees an ideological showdown between Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) and is packed to the brim with Avengers old and new. It's been very well-received by critics and, now, audiences, who gave the film a promising "A'' CinemaScore.
After a $75m first day, the opening was right in line with expectations, and according to comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, is well on its way to becoming a $1bn movie.
"We've become so accustomed to these massive numbers, now we're putting up single day numbers that would be very noteworthy opening weekends on their own," Dergarabedian said.
Civil War cost a hefty $250m to produce but has already far-surpassed that thanks to a healthy international debut last weekend and a big bump from China this weekend. In sum, the superhero showdown has earned $678.4m globally to date.
Great reviews and word of mouth will surely distinguish Civil War from Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which, by comparison, opened to $166m in late March but fell sharply over the subsequent weekends. That film has earned $327.3 domestically million to date and this weekend placed 10th with $1m.
As is to be expected when there's only one new wide release, the rest of films on the box office charts looked paltry in comparison. The only big change was that Civil War effectively ended the three week first-place run of Disney's The Jungle Book which came in second with $21.9m, bringing its domestic total to $285m.
(Gif: Giphy)
