Box Office: ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Debuts to Heroic $185 Million

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefCinema box office this year in North America is poised to overtake theatrical revenues in China, the country that has been the world’s largest movie market for the past two years.Before the latest weekend, gross revenues in the year to date stood at $2.38 billion for the North American compared with $2.43 billion for China, according to data from ComScore.U.K.-based research firm Gower Street Analytics forecast that the North American figure would overtake China’s revenues over the weekend or early this week. That reflects business growth in North America and the current reversal in China, where anti-COVID measures are causing renewed cinema closures.Gower Street says that some 85% of global cinemas are now open for business, compared with pre-pandemic levels.

LOS ANGELES -- Doctor Strange and his multiverse got to linger a little longer atop the weekend box office as Tom Cruise and “Top Gun” wait in the wings.Marvel's “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was the top-earning film of the weekend for the third straight week, bringing in $31.6 million in 4,534 North American theaters, according to studio estimates released Sunday.“Downtown Abbey: A New Era” made a strong opening showing for Focus Features with $16 million from 3,820 theaters, but there was no real blockbuster competition for “Doctor Strange."That will change with the long awaited, and long delayed, release of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel that arrives next week on Memorial Day weekend, 36 years after the original smash hit and cultural landmark.It flies in amid sky-high hype.Cruise had the film festival in Cannes, France, abuzz on Wednesday with a whirlwind appearance for the film's European premiere that included a fly over of French fighter jets and an honorary Palme d’Or award.But while the world waits, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” crossed the $800 million mark in global grosses, surpassing “The Batman” to become the top-grossing film of the year.Released by the Walt Disney Co. and directed by Sam Raimi, “ Doctor Strange 2 ” benefitted from being the first Marvel movie to follow “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in which Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer played a pivotal role.It also builds upon the popular Disney+ series “Wandavision” and contains a number of cameos that fans didn’t want to be spoiled.Holdover family films “The Bad Guys” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” took the third and fourth spots.

This means that the MCU now has the top two highest totals for any Hollywood film since theaters reopened, as “Doctor Strange 2” is now only second to the $1.89 billion total of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” It should also pass the totals of last year’s Chinese blockbuster hits “Hi, Mom” ($822 million) and “The Battle at Lake Changjin” ($902 million) in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Focus Features’ “Downton Abbey: A New Era” has opened to $16 million from 3,820 theaters — a record screen count for Universal’s specialty wing — and earned a global opening of $51.7 million.

Refresh for latest…: Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is approaching $700M globally after two weekends. The worldwide cume through Sunday is now an estimated $688.1M, including $291.9M domestic and $396.2M from the international box office. The latter number will shortly pass The Batman to become the biggest overseas release of 2022.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” stayed on top of the box office charts during its second weekend in theaters, earning an additional $61 million from North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.With $688 million in global grosses, it’s already one of the highest grossing films of the pandemic and the second biggest of 2022. But a 67% fall is also a steep drop — even for reliably frontloaded superhero films.

First the somewhat bad news: this domestic result represents a 67% drop from the film’s $187 million domestic opening. By comparison, 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which opened to $191 million and 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War,” which opened to $179 million, had holds of 59.5% and earned second weekend totals of over $70 million.

Jordan Moreau “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” still reigns supreme. The Marvel sequel crossed $550 million at the global box office in nine days, Disney announced Friday.The Benedict Cumberbatch-led movie, directed by Sam Raimi, will put a spell over the box office once again this weekend, where it faces no major competition in theaters.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterFor the past two years, box office reports have been accompanied by a COVID-shaped asterisk: Ticket sales were [insert adjective of choice] for a pandemic.After all, “Wonder Woman 1984,” “F9: The Fast Saga” and every would-be blockbuster in between could have generated more in ticket sales without a devastating global health crisis upending the movie theater landscape.But as “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” debuted to $90 million last October ($10 million more than its predecessor) and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” landed the second-highest domestic debut in history with $260 million, the caveats began to fade. Add in “The Batman” ($134 million debut in March) and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” ($71 million start in April, $13 million more than its predecessor), and those numbers weren’t just notable for a pandemic, they were plain notable.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefCinema box office in China fell back to the lower depths over the weekend, with just $8.9 million of revenue across a country of 1.3 billion inhabitants.Business continues to be badly hit by COVID-related closures as the disease shows signs of spread around the country, while slowly diminishing in Shanghai where there was a full lockdown that lasted many weeks.Business appeared to spike upwards a week earlier, driven by the May Day holiday. But Chinese state media reports that the Sunday to Wednesday May day period was down 82% compared with last year.The latest weekend box office total (Friday to Sunday) was the second lowest this year.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the newest timeline-altering tentpole in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, captured a huge $265 million in its international box office debut.Those mighty ticket sales represent the second-biggest opening weekend overseas in pandemic times. Sony’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” still stands as the highest-grossing COVID-era debut with $340 million internationally.The second “Doctor Strange” film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the goatee-rocking sorcerer, generated $185 million in North America over the weekend, bringing its global tally to a massive $450 million.

despite poor reviews.The star-studded flick, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, is now projected to top $200 million in US sales through Sunday, well ahead of the $160 million to $180 million previously expected, according to Variety.“Dr.

J. Kim Murphy The doctor is in.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterSPOILER ALERT: This story discusses the main post-credit scene in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” currently in theaters.For as long as he’s been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) — former genius neurosurgeon turned master of the mystical arts — has only had eyes for one person: Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams).

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains a major “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” spoiler. 

WARNING: Major spoilers below for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”Benedict Cumberbatch is back in his wizard cape and costume for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”The sequel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2016 superhero flick reunites Cumberbatch, 45, with stars Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chiwetel Ejiofor, with Elizabeth Olsen and Xochitl Gomez rounding out the main cast.However, there were many shocking cameos that made fans literally gasp in the movie theater.The film followed Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) as he teams up with America Chavez (Gomez) to stop Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Olsen) throughout several universes.About almost halfway through the two-hour Sam Raimi-directed movie, a medley of characters appear in a series of surprising cameos.WARNING: Stop reading to avoid spoilers.There is one point in the story where Dr.

A very marvel-ous season! Nearly five months since the last Marvel Cinematic Universe flick hit the big screen, this summer will have two highly anticipated sequels coming out: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder — and that’s just the tipping point for 2022 movie releases.

WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS. Do not read if you don’t want to know!

Get Tickets for To catch up on the storylines so that you're fully ready to watch the newest movie, keep reading to find out which Marvel movies and series you should stream beforehand. What better movie to watch before the sequel than the first  film. The 2016 movie, available to stream now on Disney+, tells the story of Stephen Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant, but self-involved neurosurgeon who loses everything after his hands are damaged in a car accident. On a quest to heal his injuries, Strange travels to Nepal to study mystic arts and unlocks his true potential as a magician.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the latest timeline-bending entry in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, has kicked off at the international box office, collecting $27.2 million on opening day.The film is currently playing in 20 overseas markets, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea. “Doctor Strange 2” opens in North America and several other territories on Friday.

Clayton Davis The horror genre is one of the most undervalued art forms in the space of critical accolades. However, scramble in the superhero factor, like Marvel’s newest entry, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” from Sam Raimi, and you have a product that will indeed generate discussion and divisive reactions.To get it out of the away nice and early, the anticipated sequel is not a contender to go into the history books like the two previous superhero features that managed to make the cut, “Black Panther” (2018) and “Joker” (2019).