What Will Be Infinity War's Opening Weekend Box Office?

Early reports indicate that ticket sales for Infinity War are outpacing all of their previous franchises, and should be putting up huge numbers on opening weekend. The first two Avengers movies made $207M and $191M respectively, and Infinity War should beat both those two numbers. They are merging an already successful franchise with Spiderman, Dr. Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. The bigger question is, will Infinity War be able to push into the Star Wars zone? My prediction is that it won't come close to Force Awakens, but will narrowly beat The Last Jedi.

Variety is reporting today that projections for IW's opening weekend are increasing, suggesting that the film could go as high as $235M. Our official prediction here at Cinema Analytica is for $225M.

Official Prediction: Infinity War $225M domestic opening weekend.

Ranking Some Comparable Opening Weekends (domestic):

$247M: Force Awakens
$220M: Star Wars Last Jedi
$207M: Avengers, 2012
$202M: Black Panther
$191M: Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
$179M: Captain America Civil War
$166M: Batman V Superman
$146M: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
$133M: Suicide Squad
$92M: Justice League

Anything under $200M will be considered a disappointment (which is a strange thing to say given that only 5 movies have ever topped that number). They have not released the official production budget, but it is estimated to be close to one billion dollars for both Avengers 3 and 4. These could be the 2 most expensive movies ever made, making their success at the box office very important to Disney. Age of Ultron was a small disappointment on its opening weekend, but did go on to bank 1.4 billion dollars worldwide (which doesn't even include merchandising).

Even if the opening weekend domestic box office falls short of projections for Infinity War, it should still be one of the highest grossing movies of all-time internationally. Pre-sales have been huge, so even if it's a flop, it will be the highest grossing flop since Batman V Superman (which is easily the worst movie of the 10 comparables listed above).

We booked our tickets a few weeks ago for the first Saturday, so our investment is already in the bank. Enjoy the movie everyone!