‘Captain Marvel’ Flies High With $456 Million Worldwide Debut

Captain Marvel, the latest entry in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, had an impressive opening weekend grossing $153.4 million domestically and $303.2 million internationally for worldwide ticket sales of $456.6 million.

Overseas, China was the movie’s largest market with an estimated $89.3 million, with South Korea ($24.1 million), U.K. ($16.8 million), Brazil ($13.4 million), and Mexico ($12.8 million) rounding out the five largest international debuts. Captain Marvel now holds the sixth-best worldwide opening in history, which is also the second highest debut for a Marvel movie only behind Avengers: Infinity War, which generated $640.5 million its first weekend.

At least a dozen vfx companies worked on the Disney/Marvel picture: Industrial Light & Magic, Trixter, Framestore, Animal Logic, Lola Visual Effects, Scanline VFX, Rising Sun Pictures, Luma Pictures, Digital Domain, Rise, Cantina, and SSVFX. Their invaluable work often goes unnoticed in conversations regarding the success of tent-pole releases like Captain Marvel.

Now in its third week, Universal/Dreamwork Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World slipped to the no.2 position at the U.S. box office with $14.6 million despite experiencing a 51% drop from last weekend. Dean DeBlois’ final installment in the Dreamworks animated franchise has amassed $119.6 million at home and $317.2 million abroad for a global gross of $438.8 million. It still has some ways to go until it reaches How to Train Your Dragon 2′s worldwide gross of $621.5M, but it’s inching closer to the first film’s worldwide total of $494.9 million.

After five weeks in theaters, Mike Mitchell’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part came in at no.4 this weekend with just $3.8 million, with a domestic total of $97.1M. With just $67.5M internationally, its global gross is a disappointing $164.6M. It will need to perform well in its upcoming releases in China, Australia, and Japan just to reach half of the original Lego Movie’s $469.2M worldwide.

Meanwhile, Alita: Battle Angel was fifth in the U.S. with $3.2M for a grand total of $78.3 million in the U.S. and $304.1M abroad. Robert Rodriguez’s feature has now collected $382.4 million globally, which is far more than the dismal initial predictions for the sci-fi fantasy starring a cg version of Latina actress Rosa Salazar.

Expanding to 17 theaters across the U.S., the Hungarian 2d animated feature Ruben Brandt, Collector, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, made only $8,894 for a total $50,605 after four weeks.