'Shang-Chi' Has Heroic Opening Weekend

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings had a great opening weekend in theaters. The new Marvel movie had the second-highest opening gross of the pandemic era, second only to another Marvel movie, Black Widow. It remains to be seen whether or not the success of Shang-Chi will continue for more than a single weekend. Black Widow saw a huge drop-off in ticket sales after its first few days. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

Theater owners got down on their knees and thanked the movie gods this weekend for the arrival of Marvel’s newest superhero extravaganza over the usually sleepy Labor Day frame. Disney’s latest entry in the MCU, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, blew past industry predictions and bowed to a Marvel-ous $71.4 million over the first three days of the long holiday weekend, making it the second-highest grossing film of the COVID era, just behind Black Widow’s $80.3 million back in July. Unlike that film, however, the Asian-themed Shang-Chi is playing exclusively in theaters and should thus prove to have longer legs than Scarlett Johansson & Co.’s epic, which simultaneously rolled out on Disney Plus.

Originally slated to hit theaters back in February, Shang-Chi proved to be worth the wait. The PG-13-rated film, which is Marvel’s first to feature an Asian superhero and be anchored by a cast and director of Asian origin, was expected to pull in between $45 and $50 million over its first weekend. But it quickly became clear that the movie—which stars Simu Liu along with Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, and Tony Leung—would blow past those bearish projections. In fact, Shang-Chi’s projected four-day holiday weekend haul of $83.5 million leaves the previous Labor Day box-office record holder, 2007’s Halloween (with $30.6), well in the dust. It was just the sort of news that nervous theater owners were hoping for.

With an impressive $13.2 million of its total receipts coming from IMAX screens, Shang-Chi proved to be a hit with both audiences (who gave the film a straight ‘A’ CinemaScore) but critics as well (who goosed the film to a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Unspooling in 4,300 locations, Marvel’s latest earned a whopping $16,604 per-screen average and added on another $56.2 million from overseas. While that may sound low it makes sense when you consider that the film still hasn’t been scheduled for release in China—one of Marvel’s biggest markets, especially considering the Asian-themed nature of Shang-Chi. Its one-week worldwide cume is $139.7 million. With little in the way of new competition from the major studios in the next couple of weekends and the film’s theatrical exclusivity for its first 45 days, Shang-Chi should continue to pull in big bucks until at least the beginning of October.

As for the runner-up spot, that honor went to last week’s champ, Candyman, which pulled in slightly more than $10.5 million domestically over the weekend’s first three days—a drop off of -52% from the previous session.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.