Sexist trolls couldn’t stop Carol Danvers from dominating the box office. Brie Larson-starrer “Captain Marvel” landed the biggest worldwide opening of all time for a female-led film, taking in $455 in worldwide ticket sales, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. The pic also scored the second-largest opening for a comic book adaptation, coming in behind “Avengers: Infinity War’s” $640.5 million. It’s the sixth-best worldwide opening of all time, and the highest for a film with a woman director. Anna Boden directed “Captain Marvel” alongside Ryan Fleck.
In North America, the galactic war story grossed $153 million, “surpassing the $103 million grossed by DC’s groundbreaking ‘Wonder Woman’ on its first weekend, as well as landing the seventh-biggest debut for the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind the three Avengers movies, ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ and ‘Iron Man 3,’ not adjusted for inflation. It’s also the second-largest domestic start for a superhero pic starring a new character behind ‘Black Panther,'” the source notes.
“Marvel Studios once again proves that stories combining diverse perspectives and different experiences make great movies that play to everybody. People crave representation,” said Disney distribution chief Cathleen Taff. “Higher, further, faster, baby.”
Set in 1995, “Captain Marvel” sees Larson playing a noble warrior caught in the center of a battle between alien races. The Oscar-winning “Room” actress worked to ensure that the press tour for “Captain Marvel” was inclusive. When we asked her about the impact of the#MeToo and #TimesUp movements, she said, “Whether we’re talking about gender equality or discrimination of any kind or issues of safety—these are things that first require safe spaces to be able to talk about them, which we didn’t have before. Which is not to say that it’s totally safe now and everything’s great, but I feel like we’re getting closer to that. That’s my main focus at this point.”
Before the film’s release, Larson cautioned against using its box office numbers to draw hasty conclusions about the commercial potential of films by and about women. “There’s this sense of setting this thing up,” she explained. “I know it’s exciting and fun to be like, ‘Will it sink or will it float?’ ‘What’s going to happen?’ ‘Can women exist in the world?’ ‘We’re not sure yet!’ But women have been opening movies since the silent era,” she emphasized. “We have been part of every major art movement. People just push us away once the movement gains momentum and act like we were never really there.”
