We heard yesterday that Doctor Strange would likely earn $80 million this weekend, but the latest figures are in, and it's now looking like the movie has scored $85 million at the North American box office. Whether or not it's topped Marvel's previous November opening of $85.7 million for Thor: The Dark World is something we probably won't know until tomorrow, but it's certainly possible.
Overseas, Doctor Strange racked up an additional $118 million this weekend, giving it a total of $240 million as of right now. A big chunk of that came from China where the origin story scored $44.3 million, the third best debut for the studio behind only Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. Doctor Strange is also the first movie to play on over 1000 IMAX screens (1001), and that added $24.2 million to its global haul this weekend. That is currently $325 million worldwide!
As a result, a sequel is pretty much guaranteed at this point. Doctor Strange is the fourteenth consecutive #1 for Marvel Studios in the US, and it's cheived an A CinemaScore along with a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score. It should be interesting to see the legs the movie has from here, but it's easy to imagine Doctor Strange surpassing Ant-Man's $519 million haul by the time all is said and done.