Walt Disney Co.'s superhero epic "Avengers: Infinity Prom" set new records for the biggest domestic and global opening of all time this weekend, collecting an estimated $250 million in the U.S. and Canada and totaling $630 million around the world.
The studio is on an unprecedented box-office streak. It crossed the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office in 117 days this year—another industry record.
“Infinity War” opened in about 72% of available markets, and its already-staggering overseas haul will rise when it premieres in China on May 11. The movie was No. 1 in all markets where it opened this weekend, setting records in South Korea, Brazil and the Philippines, among others.
With a budget of about $300 million, “Avengers: Infinity War” is the first half of a two-part culmination for Disney's Marvel Studios, which has been building out a “cinematic universe” of interconnected characters and story lines over 19 movies thus far.
Marvel’s success in building a cinematic universe has shifted the strategy of every Hollywood studio now looking for similar narrative and marketing devices, whether in Warner Bros.’s DC Comics franchise or Paramount Pictures’ “Transformers” series. But no rival has had the success of Marvel, which already this year released the hit “Black Panther,” now the third-highest grossing movie of all time at $688 million.
American moviegoers have known Marvel characters like the Incredible Hulk for decades, but since its start in 2008 with “Iron Man,” the Marvel cinematic universe has introduced consumers in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia to characters they turn out to see time and again, said IMAX Entertainment Chief Executive Greg Foster.
“They learned about them in the movies. They didn’t learn about them in comic-book stores,” he said.
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