The 10th anniversary of a wedding is typically celebrated with tin or aluminum; for Marvel Studios, it’ll be celebrated in the most epic way imaginable.
Not that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a marriage, per se, but it’s still a cinematic union between some of the most recognized comic book characters in history. And yes, we are referring to Avengers: Infinity War, Joe and Anthony Russo’s super-sized ensemble piece that is barreling down on its May release date.
But with only a two-minute teaser and a Super Bowl promo to its name – so far, at least – Marvel is clearly exercising a lot of restraint when it comes to promoting their biggest blockbuster. Still, that hasn’t stopped analysts from beginning to make box office predictions and with the film now releasing a week earlier, the first numbers are in, and they point to a suitably massive opening for the pic.
According to Box Office Pro, Avengers: Infinity War will pull in a cool $215 million domestically this April when it opens, which would make it the biggest MCU haul (beating The Avengers‘ $207 million), but not quite large enough to top The Last Jedi‘s $220 million or The Force Awakens‘ $248 million. Furthermore, analysts believe the event movie could end its domestic run at $538 million, which wouldn’t be bad, but would still fall quite short of The Avengers‘ $623 million.
Of course, it goes without saying, but it’s best to take these numbers with a grain of salt. I mean, we’re still pretty far out from release and if you recall, initial projections for Black Panther‘s opening weekend were $90 million – and we all know what happened there, right? Besides, these figures do seem pretty low for what’s undoubtedly the year’s biggest release and we imagine that as time goes on, they’ll be revised significantly.
Still, at least we have some idea now of how the film might perform and we’ll finally get to see for ourselves what all the fuss is about when Avengers: Infinity War storms into theaters on April 27th. And with Avengers 4 following a year later, it’s safe to say that the MCU is about to undergo a radical shake-up, one which will change it forever.