Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh play as Natasha and Yelena in Marvel’s “Black Widow”.
Disney
Natasha Romanoff is coming for the box office.
After a 14-month delay, “Black Widow” hits theaters on Friday and is ready to hit the box office hit of any movie released during the pandemic.
As of Wednesday, the Marvel flick will top pre-sales for “F9” and “A Quiet Place Part II” over the same period, Fandango told CNBC. It also tops pre-sales of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Doctor Strange,” both of which were released before the pandemic.
Doctor Strange raised $ 85 million when it opened in 2016 and Spider-Man: Homecoming raised $ 117 million when it debuted in 2017.
Current estimates assume that “Black Widow” will generate between 80 and 110 million US dollars in box office receipts this coming weekend. That would be a pandemic record, overtaking “F9”, which debuted two weeks ago with $ 70 million ticket sales.
An opening in this area would also be comparable to a number of other Marvel titles, including: “Thor: The Dark World”, “Spider-Man: Far From Home”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Captain America: The Winter” . Soldier “and” Iron Man “.
“So far we’ve seen several mile markers of recreation in the cinema, but I have little doubt that the most significant one yet with ‘Black Widow’ is in sight,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice.com.
Set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, Black Widow will also debut on Disney + for $ 30 the same day. Box office analysts aren’t sure how this simultaneous launch will affect box office performance, but advanced ticketing suggests many will choose to venture out of their homes to see this feature on the big screen.
“The hybrid release of ‘Black Widow’ challenges typical forecasting models as a tentpole of this magnitude has never been released this way, but I’m pretty confident we’ll be talking about some very special box office results this weekend despite the presence of a paid streaming option, “said Robbins.
After all, Marvel fans flocked to make “Avengers: Endgame” the best-selling film in cinema history. That is, until Disney re-released “Avatar” during the pandemic. Disney has released a steady stream of Marvel content on its streaming service since January, but it hasn’t had a feature film associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the big screen in two years.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, suggests that some Marvel fans will choose to see “Black Widow” in theaters first and then buy the film on Disney + to watch again at home.
“It seems that true Marvel fans will always choose the movie theater option first because that’s where they had some of their most memorable and creepy movie theater experiences,” he said. “Seeing a Marvel movie on a big screen with similarly enthusiastic fans in the community environment of the cinema is a really special event and has been a long time coming for millions of fans around the world, so all eyes are on ‘ Black Widow’s directed its “debut this weekend.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns fandango.
