'Eternals' Wins the Weekend Box Office

Marvel's Eternals was the top movie at the box office this weekend, but the new wasn't all good for Disney, the studio behind the movie. Ticket sales were slightly disappointing, especially for a Marvel movie. Maybe even worse, audience reaction to the movie was lackluster, and critics for the most part didn't like it either. The result is a movie that, so far, is the worst performing Marvel movie to date. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

When it comes to the box office, success is relative. For most Hollywood studios, a $71 million domestic opening would be cause to bust out the bubbly and do a victory dance. But when your movie carries the Marvel banner, expectations are sky high. That’s why the debut of the superhero studio’s latest tentpole, Eternals, may seem like a bit of a mixed bag. Yes, the rookie’s $161.7 million global haul over the weekend was the second-biggest worldwide bow of 2021 (behind onlyF9: The Fast Saga’s $163 million), but its less-than-Marvel-ous reception among critics and audiences raises nagging questions about whether Eternals will have the same long theatrical legs as Marvel’s other recent hits.

With early projections putting Eternals’ North American opening somewhere in the neighborhood of $75-$80 million, the star-studded epic about a race of immortal beings fell slightly short of predictions. Still, its $71 million bow ($7.6 million of which came from IMAX screens) is nothing to sneeze at, as it represents the fourth-best domestic debut of the pandemic era, edged out only by three other Marvel and Marvel-affiliated properties: Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($90 million), Black Widow ($80.4 million), and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($75.4 million). Directed by Chloe Zhao, whose previous film was the Oscar-winning indie Nomadland, Eternals debuted in 4,090 theaters domestically, earning a $17,359 per-screen average. The PG-13-rated film, which stars Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, and Richard Madden among others, added $90.7 million overseas (with the strongest returns coming from South Korea, the United Kingdom, and France). It has not opened in the all-important Chinese market yet. However, it’s worth nothing that several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, halted the film’s release on religious grounds since it features the MCU’s first gay superhero. The film earned a ‘B’ CinemaScore grade (the lowest of any Marvel film to date) and currently has a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the only MCU film to be tagged with a green splat.

With the arrival of Eternals, the previous box-office champ, Dune, was knocked down to second place. Warner Bros.’ PG-13-rated futuristic adventure pulled in $7.6 million in its third weekend, falling off -50.6% from the previous frame. Unspooling at 3,546 locations, the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult sci-fi novel starring Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac scored a $2,148 per-screen average. To date, the film which is also playing on HBO Max has racked up $83.9 million at the domestic box office and a far more robust $246.5 million overseas, bringing its combined worldwide gross to $330.4 million.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.