TheQuartering [11/7/2021]
The Eternals Box Office & Reviews.
Chloé Zhao’s Eternals battled its way to a $71 million debut from 4,090 theaters in North America — the low end of expectations — but fared better overseas for a worldwide start of $161.7 million, the second-biggest global opening of the pandemic era.
Eternals‘ domestic start is among the lowest of any of the 26 titles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — the last film to open to less was Ant-Man in 2015 ($57.2 million) — and lower than the two other Marvel/Disney movies released during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Black Widow.
Word-of-mouth was hampered by the lowest Rotten Tomatoes Score and U.S. audience CinemaScore of any title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The good news for Marvel Studios and Disney: plenty of loyal fans still came out and Eternals was able to make it past the $70 million mark (some analysts had it launching to $67 million).
And numbers were robust internationally, where the superhero offering opened to a better-than-expected $90.7 million from 46 material markets and excluding China and Russia, where a COVID surge has prompted another round of cinema closures.
Eternals opened No. 1 everywhere except for India. South Korea — where it scored the top opening of the pandemic-era for a Western film — led with $14.1 million, followed by the U.K. ($7.1 million), France $6.7 million, Mexico ($5.7 million) and Australia ($5 million). Disney estimates that in like-for-like markets, Zhao’s film is pacing 76 percent ahead of Shang-Chi and 26 percent ahead of Black Widow.
Heading into the weekend, Disney and Marvel Studios were hopeful that Eternals would hit $75 million in North America.