Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Takes A Big Dip At The Box Office, But Still Puts Up Big Numbers

[Taylor Swift]

Doctor Strange climbs the domestic charts in its second week.

 

 

 

When Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home had its second weekend in theaters last year, it unsurprisingly saw its numbers dip comparatively by 67 percent. While it was impressive that the Marvel movie made over $260 million in its opening weekend, there was little expectation that its second Friday-to-Sunday stretch would see the blockbuster add another nine-figure sum to its domestic total. 

That's key to keep in mind while looking at the latest box office income for Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, as while the film actually matched the last Spider-Man movie in second weekend percentage drop, its still well on its way to being considered one of Marvel Studios' biggest hits. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!

TITLE    WEEKEND GROSS    DOMESTIC GROSS    LW    THTRS

1. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness    $61,003,000    $291,862,523    1    4,534
2. The Bad Guys    $6,900,000    $66,284,110    2    3,788
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 2    $4,550,000    $175,699,375    3    3,116
4. Firestarter*    $3,820,000    $3,820,000        3,412
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once    $3,302,720    $47,103,580    5    1,726
6. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore    $2,420,000    $90,045,688    4    2,578
7. The Lost City    $1,730,000    $97,149,828    7    1,675
8.The Northman    $1,700,000    $31,157,855    6    1,934
9. Family Camp*    $1,400,000    $1,400,000        854
10. The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent    $1,050,000    $18,217,570    8    1,076

 

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Is Now The Second Biggest Domestic Hit Of 2022

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness had the second biggest box office opening since the start of the pandemic (and the eleventh biggest of all time), and in its sophomore weekend it has continued to rake in a ton of cash. The $61 million it has made in the last three days – via The Numbers – is about two-thirds of what it brought in from its first three days ($187.4 million), and added to some staggering totals. To date, the blockbuster has made $291.9 million domestically, and worldwide it is already more than halfway to making $1 billion with $613.1 million made in global tickets so far.

In the United States and Canada, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness hasn't quite made enough money to be called the biggest film of 2022 thus far, but I would expect that it will earn that title within the next couple of weeks. It has already outgrossed Jeff Fowler's Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which has made $175.7 million to date, but the Marvel film is still sitting behind Matt Reeves' The Batman, which is now on the home video market but made $369.2 million before it was done playing on the big screen .

The ranking relationship between Doctor Strange 2 and The Batman is mirrored on the worldwide box office chart. The latter made $760.8 million globally in theaters, and so the former needs to make a little less than $150 million to surpass it. There is no doubt that will happen.

Doctor Strange and Wong in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness

 

Really the only chart where Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness doesn't look like a ridiculously massive hit thus far is when it is compared to the best of Marvel Studios since 2008. The movie may have banked over $600 million globally thus far, but that only makes it the 20th most successful Marvel Cinematic Universe release. It has now made more than Jon Favreau's Iron Man ($585.2 million) and Peyton Reed's Ant-Man ($518.9 million), but has done just 22 percent of the business that Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Endgame did back in 2019.

Doctor Strange 2 will obviously never make anywhere near as much as the Infinity Saga capstone film, but it will be interesting to see how high up the chart it will ultimately climb. By the time it was done playing in theaters, Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $1.9 billion, and the Doctor Strange sequel won't ultimately put up numbers that big either, but it is conceivable that the blockbuster could enter into the Marvel Cinematic Universe's box office Top 10, taking the Number 10 spot from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Captain Marvel (which made $1.1 billion worldwide in 2019)

The movie release schedule is most certainly working in favor of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness – at least domestically. Clearly Keith Thomas' Firestarter was no match for the Marvel movie (more on that in a second), and there aren't high expectations that Simon Curtis' Downton Abbey: A New Era will be stealing eyeballs from the blockbusters' main demographic. The next real big competition for the Doctor Strange follow-up isn't coming out until the end of the month in the form of Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick.

Firestarter Flames Out With Slow Start In Hybrid Release

The fact that Universal Pictures decided to release Firestarter both in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously suggests that the studio never had much confidence in the Stephen King adaptation, and admittedly we don't know how many people actually watched the movie because streaming numbers aren't publicly available. That being said, there is definitely not a lot to celebrate about the horror movie's performance on the big screen this weekend.

Playing on over 3,400 theaters nationwide, Firestarter only managed to gross $3.8 million. In the 19th weekend of 2022, that's figure represents the 24th biggest opening of the year, behind Ti West's X ($4.3 million) and D.J. Caruso's Redeeming Love ($3.5 million). Because of the streaming option that the studio made available, that's not a full representation of the film's viewership, but there aren't really many positive things to say about the numbers presented. The Stephen King movie was produced by Blumhouse for only $12 million (according to Deadline), so at the very least it won't be seen as one of the year's bigger flops.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Will Become A24's Biggest Hit Yet Domestically

To end this week's CinemaBlend box office column on a more positive note, I'll once again highlight the success of Daniels' Everything Everywhere All At Once, which continues to be one of the most exciting box office stories of the year. It continues to look unlikely that the movie will end up being called A24's biggest movie yet due to the fact that Ari Aster's Hereditary made $81.3 million worldwide in 2018, but very soon it looks like it will at least be able to lay claim to the title of Biggest Movie Domestically for the indie studio.

The $3.3 million that Everything Everywhere All At Once made in the last three days (good enough for fifth place) means that its domestic total is now up to $47.1 million, which is less than $3 million away from the total made by Ben and Josh Safdie's Uncut Gems three years ago. It's a safe bet that the movie will close that gap – possibly in the time before I write next week's box office column.

Speaking of A24, the studio's latest release – Alex Garland's Men – will be hitting theaters this Friday, May 20, along with the aforementioned Downton Abbey: A New Era. Be sure to head back here next Sunday to discover how the Top 10 is shaken up, and you can get a preview of the weeks ahead via our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.