The hammer of Thor came down at the box office, with the latest big-screen addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe taking the top spot in its opening weekend with a domestic take of $121 million, and a whopping $427 worldwide.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is an increase of more than 40 per cent over the previous “Thor” movie, 2013’s “Thor: The Dark World”, which delivered$85.7 million in its opening weekend. In addition, the film’s $55.6 million debut in China is a a new record for the month of November.
Not only did “Thor: Ragnarok” bring some desperately needed good news after some terrible October box-office results, it’s also the fourth-best opening of the year.
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According to industry analysts, the addition of Mark Ruffalo (and his mean, green alter-ego the Hulk) and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange (who makes a brief cameo) certainly proved to be a factor, as did the bold Marvel debut of director Taika Waititi.
“Because of the strength of the Marvel team, it affords the license to bring in storytellers that have the ability to infuse tone and style that keeps each of these films feeling unbelievably fresh,” Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis tells THR. “The $13 billion grossed by the 17 MCU titles averages out to $800 million per film globally. Just as impressive, if not more, is the consistency from a quality standpoint.”
Landing at a distant second place is the sequel “Bad Moms Christmas”, which brought in $17 million in its opening weekend, followed by “Jigsaw”, which locked up the third-place position with a box-office take of $6.7 million in its second weekend of release.
Rounding out the top five are “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2: A Madea Halloween”, taking fourth place with $4.6 million, and “Geostorm” in fifth position with just over $3 million.
