It was a historic weekend at the box office, as Avengers: Infinity War set new records for both domestic and worldwide opening weekends. The latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe brought in $250 million on the domestic front and a stunning $630 million worldwide to easily claim the top spots in both metrics. The film’s opening (based on current Sunday estimates) beat out the $248 million first weekend of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and shattered the previous worldwide record of $541.9 million set by The Fate of the Furiousin April of last year.
There’s a lot going on here, so let’s get into it. Looking first at the domestic numbers, Infinity Wartranslated its $106 million first day start into a very good 2.35 multiple for the weekend thanks to a great 22% slip on Saturday and then 27% on Sunday. If you take out the $39 million that are rolled into Friday as part of Thursday previews, Infinity War actually had a 20% bounce from Friday to Saturday that indicates a strong family presence. That’s not too incredibly surprising, mind. Infinity War had one of the highest awareness and first-choice scores of all-time in pre-release research, ahead of The Force Awakens, Black Panther, Star Wars: Last Jedi and Jurassic World.
Everyone knew this was going to be huge, but even then it overperformed. Expectations going into the weekend were in the $225 million to $235 million, but with only an outside chance of topping The Force Awakens. The critical reviews are good for Infinity War but not off the charts, sitting at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the audience reaction and corresponding word of mouth that is making a difference. The film has an A CinemaScore, matching the scores for the other two Avengersfilms and Captain America: Civil War. That provided the boost the film needed to get over the top