Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok proved to be more lightning in the bottle for the studio, notching $121 million box office at 4,080 screens in its debut weekend.
And with those sorts of numbers —the fourth-highest opening of the year — the fictional thunder god played by Chris Hemsworth proved the answer to the prayers of the entire film industry after the worst October in a decade.
More help is on the way, appropriately enough from another batch of superheroes as Warner Bros. launches Justice League in two weeks. The multiplex could use all the saving it can get with 2017 grosses down by almost 5% compared to this time last year.
“November has been a hotbed for blockbusters and is as important to any given year as even the hottest summer months; it’s been the launch pad for some of the biggest franchises in box office history including ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Twilight,’ not to mention the traditional home for James Bond,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore, told Variety. “Now Thor joins the rarefied air that is the $100 million November opening club.”
The news wasn’t all great. STXfilm’s A Bad Mom’s Christmas, a sequel to the 2016 R-rated comedy hit, notched a disappointing five-day debut of $17 $21.6 million, after opening Wednesday — well below expectations.
Lionsgate took the third and fourth spots with last week’s box office champ Jigsaw ($6.7 million in its second weekend) and Boo 2! A Madea Halloween ($4.7 million in its third weekend).
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