Deadline reports that Thor: Love and Thunder earned an impressive $29 million from Thursday evening screenings, giving the blockbuster the second-best debut of any 2022 movie. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness remains at #1 with $36 million, though the Thor: Ragnarok sequel has been tracking behind that movie for a while now.
Still, this is a great result, especially as these preview numbers put it behind only Avengers: Endgame ($60 million), Spider-Man: No Way Home ($50 million), Avengers: Infinity War ($39 million), and the aforementioned Doctor Strange sequel.
Analysts are unsure what sort of opening weekend the God of Thunder's latest solo adventure will have, though projections from the start of the week pointed to $140 million - $160 million. What's changed since then are the reviews, as Thor: Love and Thunder isn't the critical darling Thor: Ragnarok was in 2017.
In fact, it has only 68% as we write this, a far cry from its predecessor's 93%. It's also worth noting that the movie is currently a couple of percentage points behind Thor: Ragnarok in terms of the "Audience Score," so it's possible word of mouth won't be as good on this one.
"Too silly to take seriously, there’s still a lot to love about Thor: Love and Thunder, but unlike Thor: Ragnarok, it’s unlikely to be a movie you’ll fall in love with," we said in our review earlier this week. "Marvel Studios may be developing a quantity over quality issue."
It's going to be an interesting weekend, that's for sure, and we can't help but think there will be no middle ground here; Thor: Love and Thunder will either underperform or exceed expectations. If we had to hazard a guess, it will be the latter, but you simply never know with these types of things until fans start buying their tickets...or not!
Thor: Love and Thunder is now playing in theaters!