It's been an intense few days for Marvel Studios and its fans. The rollout of the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: Brave New World, got off to a mixed start, with middling reviews that leaned negative suggesting that the franchise was on the midst of another unexpected underperformer. And yet tracking leading up to its release continued to show positive signs, with its opening night of previews also performing strong.
The Anthony Mackie-led movie is the fourth in the Captain America franchise, but the first to star his character Sam Wilson in the title role (Sam had appeared in the two previous ones as The Falcon). It's also the first to receive mixed reviews, with generated a ton of conversations over the past few days about the everlasting appeal of the MCU and whether or not it was beginning to fade.
One look at the film's box office numbers will tell you that this is not the case... at all.
Captain America: Brave New World opens strong at the box office
Love was indeed in the air this Valentine's Day weekend, as Marvel fans flocked to the movie theaters to see the franchise that they love so much once again grace the big screen. In spite of strong projections, Captain America: Brave New World managed to slightly overperform expectations at the domestic box office, opening with $100 million Stateside for a global opening of $192.4 million.
Initial projections for the movie had it tracking around $80 million domestically before they were eventually raised to a window of $86 - 95 million across the opening weekend (with a $100+ million projection across the four-day Valentine's/Presidents' Day weekend), so the fact that it has cleared that in three days suggests that a very strong four-day weekend total is inevitable. Deadline also points out that its global total is also $2 million higher than they predicted.
The film was positioned as the first big blockbuster of this year, so with the recognizable Marvel and Captain America brands to accompany that, success was likely. And yet, there was the fear that the reviews would topple that hold like it had with previous MCU titles in recent years. That doesn't appear to be the case.
This is a big win for Marvel Studios, highlighting that the brand is still as strong as ever. Ever since its Infinity Saga came to a close, some of the more recent Multiverse Saga titles have struggled at the box office (with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania failing to break even and The Marvels outright bombing). Deadpool and Wolverine saw the franchise stage a huge comeback last year, grossing over $1.3 billion, but that was considered something of a specific cause simply because of its connection to both the X-Men and Deadpool franchises.
Brave New World won't reach those numbers, and it also won't match the heights of 2016's Captain America: Civil War (which also cleared $1 billion), but that was expected, and taken into account, even. The film's modest $180 million budget set it up well, and now that it has already cleared that, there will be less pressure on it to break even - especially if its momentum doesn't slow down too much.
Nearly two decades after the first film arrived in theaters, the Captain America franchise is alive and well.