‘Thor 4’ And ‘Minions 2’ Pass $600 Million Worldwide

Thor: Love and Thunder earned another $22.1 million (-53%) in its third weekend. That’s a drop right between Black Widow (which dropped 55% while being concurrently available on Disney+ for an extra $30) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (-49% from a $117 million debut and $44 million second-weekend gross). That is, in terms of long-term guestimates, frustratingly inconclusive. Still, it’s not rebounding like Ant-Man and the Wasp (-43% after a 61% second-weekend drop), but it has earned $276.2 million in 17 days of domestic release. Its global cume is now up to $598 million. The Chris Hemsworth/Natalie Portman MCU sequel still earned $54 million worldwide this weekend. That suggests a final cume of $310-$320 million domestic and $710-$720 million worldwide.

That’s essentially tied with Thor: Ragnarok’s $315 million domestic cume ($321 million adjusted for inflation) and Thor 3’s $712 million global cume sans China and Russia ($854 million all-in in late 2017). This isn’t a Batman & Robin-level crash. I remain amused at the “Marvel is doomed!” takes I’ve seen as A) Thor 4 is going to earn as much as Thor 3, B) Doctor Strange 2 took a 65% jump (sans Russia and China) from Doctor Strange ($677 million all-in back in 2016), C) Doctor Strange 2 is the third-biggest non-Iron Man/no Spider-Man MCU flick behind Black Panther ($1.346 billion) and Captain Marvel ($1.128 billion). Had China and Russia been in play, Doctor Strange 2 would be flirting with $1.13 billion, and this entire conversation would be even more absurd.

Minions: The Rise of Gru earned another $17.71 million (-38%) in weekend four for a terrific $297.857 million 24-day total. It has sailed past Despicable Me 3 ($264 million in 2017) and is aiming for a total closer to Secret Life of Pets 2 ($368 million) than Minions ($336 million). It is tied with Secret Life of Pets’ $297 million 24-day total and has passed Minions’ $288 million end-of-weekend-four cume with better legs to boot. Oh, and it has earned $640.2 million worldwide thus far on a mere $80 million budget. It is now just a question of whether (in terms of the domestic summer movie rankings) Universal and Illumination’s Minions 2 ends up just over Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic World Dominion’s presumed over/under $375 million domestic and over/under $935 million worldwide finish.

Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing performed earned a terrific 1.62x weekend-to-week multiplier with $28 million in its first seven days. The 3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine production earned another $10.3 million (-40%) second-weekend gross. That gives the Daisy-Edgar Jones melodrama, based on Delia Owens’ best-selling novel and featuring a new song from Taylor Swift, a $38.33 million ten-day cume. If it continues, we’re looking at a $65 million domestic finish for the $24 million flick. This is a terrific result for the kind of movie that has spent the last two years getting banished to streaming. Now Sony gets theatrical revenue, the resulting post-theatrical revenue and then gets to watch it become “Netflix’s most-watched movie” for a few days (or a few weeks) in a few months. The system works!