Box Office: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ignites summer box office with a $185 million debut

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness continued to display Marvel’s strength at the box office as it kicked off the summer movie season in a truly big way.

The Doctor Strange multiverse sequel grossed $185 million over the weekend. I called $180 million in my box office predictions so this result is VERY close to what I predicted earlier in the week. Some are indicating that the $185 million estimates could actually go higher because Sunday business may be better than what’s being reported at this time. A $194-197 million is also likely but we will have to wait and see what the Monday actuals are before making that call. The film scored a “B+” CinemaScore from opening night moviegoers which isn’t the greatest Marvel has scored on that front but the daily grosses from the weekend show that word of mouth was strong enough to get the grosses so high. It should also be noted that the big theater chains such as AMC, Cinemark, and Regal did upcharge for the film. This became publicly aware when The Batman was released and AMC CEO Adam Aron made it clear that they would be doing this for larger tentpole releases. A regular ticket for other titles at AMC was $12.99 while Doctor Strange commanded $14.84. Cinemark charged $11.55 versus $10.75 and Regal up-charged to $13.77 versus $13.14. International numbers are still coming in but Deadline is reporting that the movie opened to $450 million globally.

Dropping to second, and also close to my predictions, is The Bad Guys, which grossed $9.7 million over the weekend. That’s a drop of 40% from last week and it’s honestly a solid hold in the wake of Doctor Strange’s opening. I honestly think Dreamworks Animation has a potential franchise on their hands if they really want it. To date, The Bad Guys has grossed $57.5 million at the domestic box office.

In third place, we find Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with a gross of $6.2 million. That’s a drop of 46% but our little blue guy has already claimed most of the golden rings he needed to. The film is the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time at the domestic and worldwide box office. The Sonic sequel has grossed $169.9 million at the domestic box office and while final international numbers aren’t in yet, the film had grossed $327.8 million worldwide ahead of the weekend.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is in fourth place with a gross of $3.9 million. That’s a decline of 52% from the previous weekend as this film was probably hurt the most by the arrival of Doctor Strange. So far the film has conjured up $86 million at the domestic box office and now overseas markets will have to do most of the heavy lifting to make up for its shortcomings stateside. Ahead of the weekend, the global haul was $335.5 million and we will have to see how much more that is lifted when the weekend’s international numbers are released.

Rounding out the top five is the stellar performance of Everything Everywhere All At Once which grossed $3.3 million. That’s a decline of 40% which is ok considering another multiverse movie came crashing in to take most of the box office glory. A24’s release strategy for this film has been especially great. They have rolled the movie out gradually and let the word of mouth build and a $50 million finish stateside is very much in its sights. To date, Everything Everywhere All At Once has grossed $41.5 million at the domestic box office.

What are YOUR thoughts on this weekend’s box office results?