The numbers are in for the opening weekend of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it shows the MCU is still one of the biggest franchises in the world.
After recording more presale tickets than any other film in 2022, expectations were pretty high for how well Multiverse of Madness would do in its freshman weekend. Some projections had the Doctor Strange sequel bringing in over $200 million domestically, but it turns out the actual number didn’t quite reach those heights.
Still, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness made enough money to claim the title for biggest domestic opening weekend of 2022.
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS RULES THE BOX OFFICE
With an estimated $187 million premiere, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has surpassed the $134 million opening of The Batman to become the most successful debut of the year. That total may change once the final numbers are reported, but the difference shouldn’t be enough to drop the multiversal adventure below The Dark Knight’s latest outing. Looking at 2022 as a whole, Multiverse of Madness is already the second-highest domestic film of the year by virtue of just its opening weekend, moving past such films as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Uncharted, and The Lost City.
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Multiverse of Madness also completely blew away the debut weekend of the first Doctor Strange film, which pulled in $85 million back in 2016. The more than $100 million difference between the premieres of the two Doctor Strange films is the largest throughout the entire MCU. The domestic opening of Multiverse of Madness was also the seventh-highest for the MCU, slotting between Captain America: Civil War ($179 million) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191 million).
Looking worldwide, Multiverse of Madness has raked in nearly $450 million when combining its domestic and international totals. The film’s $265 million debut overseas is the second-biggest of the pandemic era, falling behind the $340 international total Spider-Man: No Way Home brought in last year. The only MCU films other than No Way Home to have larger worldwide debuts are Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War.
The domestic opening of Multiverse of Madness is also the 11th-highest of all-time, with Age of Ultron slightly edging it out for the 10th spot. The 28th installment in the MCU recorded the third-largest opening weekend of the month of May as well, with the entire top five for the month now being made up by MCU films. Needless to say, Multiverse of Madness had a very successful weekend no matter how you break it down, continuing the MCU’s box office momentum that was built off of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
As for the rest of the box office this past weekend, The Bad Guys dropped down to the number two spot after spending a few weeks on top. The animated feature from Universal pulled in $9.7 million, pushing its domestic total up to $57.5 million so far, nearly enough to swipe the 10th spot on the highest grossing domestic films of the year list from Jackass Forever.
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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 finished in third place with just over $7 million, but the blue hedgehog has sped past $170 million at the domestic box office. The first film in the franchise totaled just over $146 million before the pandemic hit in 2020, so the Sonic franchise will more than likely get a third entry in the near future. Rounding out the top five, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore finished in fourth with $3.9 million, and Everything Everywhere All At Once wasn’t too far behind in fifth place with $3.3 million.
What did you think of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Are you surprised the film opened as well as it did? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to follow us on social media for more!
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Source: The Numbers
