‘Doctor Strange 2’ Passes ‘The Batman’ Overseas To Top $700 Million

With $4.7 million in North America (-65% from last Monday) in North America and $8.5 million overseas, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has now earned $297.3 million domestic, $406.4 million overseas and $703.7 million worldwide. It’ll pass $300 million domestic sometime today, becoming just the third such Covid-era movie to do so after The Batman ($369 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($804 million). In terms of overseas earnings, it just passed The Batman’s $399 million foreign box office total, now sitting behind only F9 ($553 million overseas, including $215 million in China), No Time to Die ($613 million) and Spider-Man 3 version 2.0 ($1.088 billion without a penny from China).

In terms of global grosses, it’ll pass F9 ($721 million) tomorrow and presumably both The Batman ($769 million) and No Time to Die ($774 million) over this coming weekend (or soon after). It’s not getting anywhere near Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.891 billion), but the silver medal is Marvel’s for the taking at least until Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion on June 10. Rough math, but the $200 million Sam Raimi-directed sequel should be at around $308 million domestic and $735 million worldwide as it enters its third Friday, with little competition save for A24’s Men and Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era which has already opened in some overseas markets.

It will soon pass the $714 million global gross of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and is already well past the likes of Ant-Man and the Wasp ($620 million), Thor: The Dark World ($644 million) and Doctor Strange ($677 million). It’ll pass Guardians of the Galaxy ($773 million) as early as this weekend and should pass both Thor: Ragnarök ($854 million) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($869 million) by the end. Whether it gets to $1 billion, or even $900 million, we should remember that there’s probably around $150-$200 million off the table due to the film not playing in China, Russia and Ukraine. it’s still playing like an upper-level solo MCU flick.

Earning over $1 billion was not the bar for success for The Batman, nor is it the bar for Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness. The $200 million wizarding flick should still end up with a $385-$405 million domestic cume and, presuming a continued 42/59 domestic/overseas split, a $905-$955 million global cume. Even if it plays like Batman v Superman from this point onward, it’ll still earn around $370 million domestic and $870 million worldwide. Since Lightyear doesn’t open for a month, Disney has no other theatrical priorities for a while. Nonetheless, China has done little more than artificially enhance the global grosses of already successful movies, and this is another example of just that.

As noted yesterday, Marvel’s biggest “no Tony Stark” release was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with $869 million global. That Spider-Man: No Way Home overperformed, partially due to multigenerational nostalgia, does not mean Doctor Strange 2 shouldn’t be allowed to play like a Doctor Strange sequel. Avengers: Infinity War earning $2.048 billion didn’t stop Ant-Man and the Wasp from “only” earning $620 million. The worst thing Marvel can do is panic under the presumption that every MCU movie should perform at Black Panther levels. Do recall how The Force Awakens’ $937 million domestic and $2.068 billion worldwide gross wrongly convinced Lucasfilm and/or Disney that such earnings were possible on the regular with reverse engineering.

It’s still, inflated expectations of copious multiverse cameos and major MCU status-quo changes aside, playing very well for a mostly stand-alone Doctor Strange sequel. I will again argue that the overperformances of Black Panther ($700 million/$1.346 billion in 2018) and Captain Marvel ($427 million/$1.128 billion, including $154 million in China) should not have created a new normal in terms of expectations for every MCU movie. In terms of Hollywood releases (not counting China for now), Multiverse of Madness is going to earn more than any movie this year save for other maybe/probably Thor: Love & Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Jurassic World: Dominion, Minions: The Rise of Gru and (of course) Avatar: The Way of Water.