After years of anticipation and 14 months of rescheduling, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were finally treated to Black Widow (2021) this weekend. The highly anticipated film opened big at the box office and also performed quite well on their Disney+ streaming release.
At the time of publication, the total domestic box office returns for Black Widow are approximate $80,000,000 bringing its global box office return to a whopping $158,000,000. This makes Black Widow the largest in-theater release since the beginning of COVID, beating out the previous record holder, F9 Fast and the Furious.
In an unprecedented act, Disney released the numbers for the streaming release of Black Widow on the Disney Premier + platform where it is reported the film took in another $60,000,000. The duel income from the box office and online results in a massive $215,000,000 total. It is not just rare, but unheard of, for a streaming service to release its numbers so early in a release, or even release them at all. But, with numbers like these, it stands to reason that Disney was excited to shout it from the mountaintop.
In the U.S., Black Widow helped put the box office close to pre-pandemic levels for the first time since the COVID-19 crisis hit. It will also be the first time that overall revenue is running ahead of the same weekend in 2019, all while satisfying the seemingly endless wait that Marvel fans stretched their patience for.
What does this mean for the next Marvel release, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and for the fate of the movie theaters? That remains to be seen, but one thing seems to be certain, there is still some serious excitement for the MCU and its upcoming films hitting theaters in 2021 and beyond.
Here's a list of the rest of the MCU releases in 2021:
September 3, 2021: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
November 5, 2021: Eternals
December 17: Spider-Man: No Way Home