"Captain Marvel" appears to have saved the North American box office.
The latest movie from Walt Disney Co.’s (NYSE: DIS) Marvel Comics division opened with North American weekend sales of $153 million U.S. and a global weekend take at $455 million U.S., the sixth-biggest international opening for a film ever.
The box office bounty gives "Captain Marvel" the biggest opening of 2019 so far and signals a rebound for theater owners, whose sales are down 26% year-to-date. Disney, the box-office leader in recent years, has several additional blockbuster films lined up in the coming weeks, including a "Dumbo" live-action remake and "Avengers: Endgame" in late April.
It’s been a sluggish start to the year at the movies. So far in 2019, the biggest weekend film was "How to Train Your Dragon" at $55 million U.S. in February. The last big hit was Warner Bros.’s "Aquaman" in late December, which opened with $68 million U.S. and went on to gross $1.14 billion U.S. worldwide.
"Captain Marvel" also breaks new ground for Disney in that it’s the first female-led superhero movie from Marvel. The studio also enlisted a woman to co-direct the picture, in another first for the film company. No other major studio opened a new movie in competition with "Captain Marvel" this past weekend
