Much to the surprise of no one, Avengers: Infinity War was crowned king of the Chinese box office last weekend. And we now have some perspective on the film’s meteoric success.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, not only is Infinity War the highest-grossing Marvel movie ever to grace the Middle Kingdom, it’s also the third most successful Hollywood import of all time – only Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious have pulled in more box office receipts – after earning a record $300.6 million in only 10 days. Indeed, the only Marvel film to come close is Age of Ultron.
That’s a staggering achievement in and of itself, as there was some concern over Infinity War‘s global appeal. Not only is it the third film in a series, and the 19th MCU movie overall, but the bleak ending dreamed up by Joe and Anthony Russo – not to mention Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely – would have left Marvel executives sweating over the metrics.
Be that as it may, the numbers have been counted, and Avengers: Infinity War is a worldwide triumph, one which has zoomed past all sorts of box office records and milestones on its journey to $1.85 billion. Granted, the threequel’s runaway success is beginning to wane, so it remains to be seen whether the MCU juggernaut can crack $2 billion before its theatrical run comes to a close.
When it comes to China, though, Infinity War co-director Joe Russo believes the importance of the Middle Kingdom cannot be overstated:
It’s an innovators market, I think. And I think that theatrical filmmaking since the advent of social media is driven by social media and the most successful films are the ones that are driving conversations. I think that’s Marvel has succeeded and tied up with sort of global interconnectivity and people being able to express their feelings and their passion for these movies as each one unfurls. So, we ultimately were interested, not only as fans and as storytellers, in real emotional catharsis and taking the audience on a journey. We think we live in a really complicated world and we wanted to tell a really complicated story.
Avengers: Infinity War is now playing across theaters near and far.