Captain Marvel, the first female led-superhero film by Marvel and Disney has turned the cards around in Hollywood for the favor of women with its box office shattering records making it the largest ever global box office debut for a female-fronted film.
The movie, which stars Academy award winning actress Brie Larson, as lead character, scored a whopping $455 million on its first day of opening including $153 million in North America and $302 million overseas, making it the fifth-best foreign opening of all time behind, The Fate of the Furious ($443.2 million), Avengers: Infinity War ($382.8 million), Jurassic World ($316.7 million), and the final Harry Porter pic ($314 million). Comparing the film’s debut record in North America to DC’s Wonder Woman in 2017, which raked $103 million, goes a long way to prove that Hollywood is truly bridging the gap of gender equality on the big screen.
The Larson fronted superhero movie has also grossed up to become the seventh-biggest debut for a Marvel Cinematic Universe behind Iron Man 3, which places sixth on the records chart. Making rounds in almost every major market in film except for Japan, the movie raked $89.3 million in China, $24.1 million in South Korea, $16.8 million in U.K and $13.4 million in Brazil, (How much can Ghana make, when shown?)
Aside its box office shattering at home and globally, the film is also recorded as the most successful feature to be directed or co-directed by a woman Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Highlighting on the success stories of female and African-American fronted superhero films, Megan Colligan, IMAX Entertainment president said, “I think we tend to perpetuate myths that are simply untrue, such as that men won’t watch a female-led superhero movie, or that African-American superhero movies won’t play overseas. Over and over again, we see that those myths are just stories that we tell ourselves to make the same type of movies in the same way. The studios who have said no to those myths and have pushed to defy them have been wildly successful.”
Set in 1995, the female-led superhero movie tells the story of extraterrestrial Kree warrior (played by Larson) who finds herself caught in the middle of an intergalactic battle between her people and the skurlls. Larson will play her Marvel cards again in the upcoming Avengers Endgame.
By: Larry Adams
