Box Office: 'Thor Ragnarok' Scores Marvelous $108M Overseas Debut
Thor: Ragnarok doesnt open in North America (or China) until this coming Friday, but it has already begun its worldwide expansion in earnest. The Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel began its overseas rollout on Tuesday in the United Kingdom and amassed $28 million heading into the weekend. The film opened over the next few days in what is now 52% of the overall international marketplace, including (among others) South Korea, France, Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Italy, Malaysia, Spain along with Iceland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and Vietnam. And thus far, the $180m threequel has amassed a rock-solid $107.6m its first six days of business, including $6m in IMAX alone.
Marvel has been able to somewhat buck the trend of dwindling sequels (and part 3s that sputter out) by trying to make each of their movies an event unto themselves. Thats the value of a brand that is as popular and trusted as the MCU, merely noting that the film takes place in the MCU is enough to give it an edge. Iron Man 3 had the good fortune to come after The Avengers while Captain America: The Winter Soldier played as a kind of Avengers 1.5 as well as a must see mythology episode which co-starred Black Widow, introduced The Falcon and shattered the status quo.
Ditto Captain America: Civil War, which pitted Avengers against each other and introduced Black Panther and Spider-Man while again offering a game-changing plot. Conversely, Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were more conventional stand-alone affairs. No spoilers, but Thor: Ragnarok is more of a monster of the week episode, since its remotely an insult since Id imagine most folks favorite X-Files episodes were the stand-alones (Beyond the Sea, The Host, Home, Bad Blood, etc.) that played around with the status quo. Come what may, the Taika Watiti-directed/Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost-written fantasy certainly has fun with the status quo.
While Thor: Ragnarok is more Thor 3 than Avengers 2.75, it does offer plenty in the realm of added value. First, youve got Mark Ruffalos Hulk joining the fun, as well as Cate Blanchett as the main baddie (the MCUs first female villain) and Jeff Goldblum playing himself as a secondary antagonist. Oh, and you have Tessa Thompson as the films appointed ass-kicker, and she gets to be just as funny as the rest of the gang. Throw in dazzling visuals and mostly positive reviews, and you have something that should play at least as well as Doctor Strange ($236 million domestic/$677m worldwide last year).
That $107.6million debut figure is actually more than the $106m opening shot for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 this past May, which in turn was 64% better than the original Guardians of the Galaxy, 57% ahead of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and 24% ahead of Thor: The Dark World in the same territories at today's exchange rates. The only question is, and this is all fun with math until next weekend, is how much of the films overall overseas cume it has already earned. So, grab your calculator, open up a few Box Office Mojo tabs, and lets dive in!
Concerning the previous October/November MCU openers, Thor: The Dark World earned a rather large 25% of its overseas total ($438m) via its $109m launch. If Thor 3 plays like Thor 2, were looking at a $430m foreign gross which frankly puts $650m worldwide in question. But Doctor Strange was leggy last year, earning $87.7m (19.7%) of its eventual $445m ($458m by todays exchange rates) overseas cume. A similar run for the Chris Hemsworth/Cate Blanchett/Tom Hiddleston/Tessa Thompson/Mark Ruffalo fantasy will give it a terrific $546m overseas total, which means $800m worldwide is not out of the question and $750m+ is all-but-certain. Again, this is all fun with math.
The more frontloaded MCU titles (Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Civil War) earned 24-29% of their overseas cumes on the opening weekend. The leggier films (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man) earned around 15-17% of their overseas cumes on opening weekend. Of note, The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron earned 20% and 21% of their $895m and $945m (still an MCU high water mark) overseas totals in their initial launch. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 earned 22% of its eventual $473m overseas cume via said $106m overseas launch.
