You’ve got to take the good with the bad at the box office, especially with the pandemic still having a detrimental effect on business across the board, so the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Eternals shouldn’t be viewed as anything other than a massive success after its first weekend in theaters.
Sure, the 26th installment in the franchise may have delivered the lowest first frame numbers since Ant-Man back in the summer of 2015, but a $71 million haul in three days has only been bettered by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Widow and Venom: Let There Be Carnage since the end of 2019.
On top of that, a $162 million global bow is the second-highest of the COVID-19 era behind No Time to Die, so Eternals is a winner when you look at nothing but the facts. Tooting its own horn, Marvel Studios celebrated the movie’s healthy coffers on Instagram, as you can see below.
Now the questions turns to whether or not Eternals will show enough legs to justify a sequel, with many of the core cast tied down to multi-picture contracts. The Incredible Hulk remains the MCU’s only one-and-done effort ever, so you’d be foolish to bet against the immortal aliens returning for another cosmic adventure in the future.