Posted in: Box Office, Movies | Tagged: box office, doctor strange and the multiverse of madness, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Doctor Strange Takes In $36 Million On Thursday Night

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness opened to $36 million on Thursday night, the second-best Thursday night in the last two years behind only Spider-Man: No Way Home's $50 million from December. That is good enough for the eighth all-time. Most guesses are putting it at around $160 million for the three-day weekend; my guess was $165 million. We shall see on Sunday. There is something else to talk about, though, which we will do below.

Doctor Strange Cleans Up, As Expected…

A certain Twitter account that reports on box office totals thought they would be cute and compare Doctor Strange to another film in theaters right now, the beloved Everything Everywhere All At Once. As they gleefully pointed out, Doctor Strange's $36 million is more than Everything has made in six weeks in theaters, its total being $35 million so far. Snarkiness aside, the comparison is terrible. Doctor Strange is a summer tent pole film for the biggest movie company in the world. Everything Everywhere All At Once is an A24 release. The budgets for the two films? Strange: around $200 million. Everything's budget: $25 million. Screen count for their opening weekends? Strange: 4,534, compared to Everything's 10. And that is also disregarding the incredible business the A24 film has been doing. Since opening on March 25th, it has gained both audience and screens each and every week. Its six-week gains?

Week 1: +671%
Week 2: +1,798 %
Week 3: +144%
Week 4: +73%
Week 5: + 115 %
Week 6: +2% (so far)

That is incredible for a variety of reasons, including that this is still a pandemic box office. Sure, those huge gains are when the screen count jumped substantially, which also points to huge demand. For a film from a smaller label like A24 to have those kinds of gains and word of mouth is a fantastic story. Putting it down to make Doctor Strange sound more impressive or cool is on-brand for this account, but it is needless. Do better.

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