Disney is ready. Marvel Studios is ready. Thanos is ready. But are you ready? April 2018 brings us the third Avengers-film, which will bring together the Guardians of the Galaxy with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. In this month’s edition of Box Office Predictions, I make my opening weekend prediction for Avengers: Infinity War.
MAJOR NORTH AMERICAN OPENING WEEKEND PREDICTIONS – April:
- Blockers – Universal – April 6th, 2018 – $18 million
- A Quiet Place – Paramount – April 6th, 2018 – $31 million
- Rampage – Warner Bros. (New Line) – April 13th, 2018 – $38 million
- Avengers: Infinity War – Disney – April 27th, 2018 – $214 million
First off, I want to talk about two films that I think will be audience favorites — Blockers starring John Cena and A Quiet Place from John Krasinski, both of which I am really excited to see. I look at these two films like this — they aren’t franchise films, so their opening weekend figures will likely land a little bit below Neighbors 2 (for Blockers) and The Conjuring 2 (for A Quiet Place).
Just like Blockers, Warner Bros.’s Rampage has a wrestling star in a central role. Rampage is yet another film with Dwayne Johnson. I think we can assume that audiences will be showing up to show a lot of love for Johnson after his Jumanji film.
And then we get to the main event: Avengers: Infinity War, which will likely be the third Marvel Cinematic Universe film to open to at least $200 million in its first weekend. Black Panther, as you might recall, opened to $202 million, and even though that film was a cultural phenomenon Marvel and Disney will still hope to have Infinity War open to more than that.
This should be bigger than both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, which both fell short of getting to $200 million. I am predicting Infinity War to have the best opening weekend yet for Marvel and Disney — The Avengers has the current record with $207 million. I’m putting it right in between Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
MAJOR OPENING WEEKENDS – March:
- A Wrinkle in Time – Disney – March 9th, 2018 – $33 million (-6)
- Tomb Raider – Warner Bros. – March 16th, 2018 – $23 million (-3)
- Pacific Rim Uprising – Universal – March 23rd, 2018 – $28 million (+7)
- Ready Player One – Warner Bros. – March 29th, 2018 – $41 million (-4)
A Wrinkle in Time had the same opening weekend figure as Tomorrowland, which tells the entire story here really. Tomb Raider‘s opening weekend figure landed pretty much where I expected it to, which is disappointing for the studio. However, one should note that it has done really well outside of North America.
Pacific Rim Uprising did slightly better than I thought it would in its opening weekend, but the second weekend total had a 67% drop. So it really isn’t all that great for the film either. I didn’t love Ready Player One, and the film did slightly worse than I expected it to in its opening weekend. But I think that the majority of the moviegoing audiences really enjoyed the film, so it will likely have good word of mouth, even though not all critics are recommending it.
THE BILLION DOLLAR CLUB — 2018 Edition:
- Black Panther – Disney – $1.27 billion
And there it is. Black Panther is the first member of the 2018 Billion Dollar Club. This film has done exceptionally well, and if the new Avengers-film is good, then that film will likely join Black Panther sooner rather than later.
– Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen
I'm Jeffrey Rex 