Black Widow Box Office Sets Pandemic Record

More than a year after it was initially slated to land in theaters, Black Widow proved to be not only an impressive debut following movie theater closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, but its preview-night numbers even bested previous Marvel Cinematic Universe numbers that weren’t hindered by the pandemic. The film took in a reported $13.2 million in its opening night, easily besting the preview numbers of predecessors F9 and A Quiet Place Part II, while also surpassing Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s $11.5 million, Guardians of the Galaxy‘s $11.2 million, and Wonder Woman‘s $11 million preview performances.

While these numbers are surely impressive, the story of Black Widow‘s box office is far from over. With most of these preview screenings beginning on Thursday night at 5 p.m. local time, the film was made available on Disney Premier Access beginning at midnight. The rental fee for in-home viewings is $29.99, regardless of the number of viewers in a household, with it being possible that the rest of the weekend could see more viewers opting to rent the film instead of heading out to theaters, somewhat stifling its box office. However, this past March saw the release of Godzilla vs. Kong not only in theaters, but also on HBO Max, yet it still took a major bite out of the opening weekend box office, proving that audiences are desperate to get back to theaters to see highly anticipated events.

In addition to how excited fans have been for the past year to finally see the standalone adventure, Black Widow‘s solo film comes more than a decade after fans first met Scarlett Johansson‘s take on the character in Iron Man 2. Despite being an integral component of the Avengers since the early days of the MCU, in addition to her death in Avengers: Endgame, many fans think this solo outing is long overdue.

“Honestly, I feel like it’s always, it feels great to leave a party when it’s still raging and I think that this film feels very much like it’s alive and fresh and powerful and I feel really pleased with it. I feel really happy with the work that we’ve done for this decade of time,” Johansson shared with ComicBook.com about leaving the MCU behind. “You know, it’s bittersweet to say ‘goodbye,’ but if you love something, you need to set it free!”

Black Widow is in theaters and on Disney Premier Access now.

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