RDI - 'Thor: Love and Thunder' hammers box office with $143M opening

Thor: Love and Thunder ( NYSE: DIS ) hammered the box office with the franchise's best opening yet, becoming the top draw at North American movie theaters and setting up a blockbuster battle for the rest of July's moviegoer dollars.

The film opened to $143M, keeping up a healthy buzz not only for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also for tentpole releases in general this summer. It fell short of the $187M May opening of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ( DIS ), but topped the opening of Thor: Ragnarok, which debuted with $122.7M in 2017.

As expected, it was trailed by Minions: The Rise of Gru ( NASDAQ: CMCSA ), which fell off about 57% to $45.6M - but stretched its domestic cumulative gross to $189.8M, and is on the edge of $400M worldwide.

And while Top Gun: Maverick ( NASDAQ: PARA ) ( PARAA ) saw an uncharacteristic 40% week-over-week drop in business - to $15.5M, good enough for third place on the weekend - that came in the film's seventh week of release. At $597M domestic, the year's top film is knocking on the $600M door, and another couple of weeks is likely push it past $620M and into the all-time top 10.

Internationally, Maverick has added another $586.2M to reach a worldwide total of $1.184B. (It's made Paramount ( PARA ) ( PARAA ) the best-performing studio so far .)

The top five was rounded out by Elvis ( WBD ), with $11M in its third week pushing it closer to a total $100M, and Jurassic World Dominion ( CMCSA ), which dropped off to $8.4M in its fifth week but passed the $350M cumulative mark.

And don't be surprised to see that top five continuing to make bank for a few more weeks, as the pace of summer blockbuster releases starts to fall off. Next weekend's wide releases bring a drama adaptation with Where the Crawdads Sing ( SONY ); a light comedy in Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (A24), and a modest family film entry in Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank ( PARA ) ( PARAA ).

On the exhibitor side of the equation, that blockbuster stack-up led AMC Entertainment ( AMC ) to lay claim to its busiest weekend of the year at home and abroad . The theater's global admissions revenue outpaced the same weekend in 2019 by about 12% (and 14% domestically), the company says, with more than 5.9M moviegoers. With the broad market lower, AMC is still -2.2% Monday.

And blockbuster-friendly IMAX ( IMAX ) drew $23M worldwide with showings of Thor: Love and Thunder, with $13.8M in North America (about 10% of domestic box office). That meant $9.2M in international IMAX box office.

Other exhibitors: Cineworld ( OTCPK:CNNWF ); Cinemark ( CNK ); Marcus ( MCS ); Reading International ( RDI ); Cineplex ( OTCPK:CPXGF ); National CineMedia ( NCMI ).

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