October is going to be a slow month at the box office in comparison to September (who would’ve thought, right?). Many were hoping that Alcon Entertainment/Sony’s Blade Runner 2049 would take us to a higher ground: In its advance ticket sales, Blade Runner 2049 was outpacing previous record October openers Gravity and The Martian, and before its debut, some tracking services had the film near a $50 million three-day as reviews hit a high 89% Rotten Tomatoes rating. As we know now, that didn’t happen.
It now looks like Marvel is here to save today, if early tracking is to be believed. Thor Ragnarok, the third in the series, hit tracking this morning, and it’s looking at a $100M-$110M start per industry figures with enormous strength among the four quadrants: Very strong with families, Hispanics and African Americans. Thor: Ragnarok in tracking has an enormous 85% in total awareness, 29% in unaided (those polled say it’s a movie they want to see without being prompted on the title, that number is huge), 61% definite interest, and 24% first choice (when you’re in the double digits at that level, that’s excellent). A $100M start would be huge for the third installment, beating its previous chapter, Thor: The Dark World‘s, $85.7M November opening four years ago. Such projections this far out always come with a footnote because when a film arrives this strong, it’s hard to determine how high it will go. Even if the domestic marketplace turns wonky, a $90M opening for Thor: Ragnarok wouldn’t be so bad either.
The Thor franchise started off with Paramount distributing the movie under their deal with Marvel, opening the first installment to $65.7M (and a final $181M) in May 2011. When Disney took over Marvel, they pushed this franchise’s numbers up even more with $85.7M debut and $206.4M final stateside. Thor: Ragnarok is the third Marvel title to play in the November corridor following Thor: The Dark World and last year’s Doctor Strange ($85M, $232.6M). Together the first two Thor movies have made over $1.09 billion at the global box office.
Early word says this installment is a lot of fun and the feedback has been really positive. Even word continues to be good, the film could go even higher so we’ll have to watch this one as the release date gets closer.
