'Captain America: Civil War' Opens with $179.1 Million; Global Cume Climbs Over $670M
Captain America: Civil War scorched the weekend box office, bringing in the fifth largest opening weekend of all-time. The massive debut contributed to Disney bringing in over $200 million this weekend as the studio became the fastest to cross the $1 billion mark in domestic earnings in just 128 days, decimating the 165 day record set by Universal just last year. And while Disney was setting records, the weekend also saw a stellar comeback for Open Road's Mother's Day as it took advantage of its holiday namesake.

With a $179.1 million opening weekend, Civil War not only scored the fifth largest opening of all-time, it is the third largest opening for a film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In fact, compared to the other standalone franchises in the MCU, the Captain America franchise continues to show the greatest film-over-film growth as Civil War's opening is a 91.3% increase over the opening for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Of course, heading into the weekend, expectations were undoubtedly high as Civil War looked as if it may be able to become only the fourth film to top $200 million in its first three days. The film's reported, $250 million budget is on par with the budget for Avengers: Age of Ultron and, given the film's sheer size and scope, Civil War plays much more like an Avengers film than your typical Marvel, standalone character feature. Added to that, Civil War saw great reviews heading into the weekend (91% on RottenTomatoes), record Fandango pre-sales for a superhero film, more premium ticket options and 3-D theaters than Ultron and the premiere of two new superheroes. Yet, don't for a second think of the film's opening as a disappointment.

Civil War scored an "A" CinemaScore, and solid holds over its first three days in release suggest a stellar domestic run is in the offing. Should it play out on par with the likes of The Winter Soldier it will end up around $290 million domestically by next Sunday and could surpass $425 million overall depending on how it holds on once X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters on May 20.

Globally the film's total is now up to $673.1 million after launching internationally last weekend and bringing in a $217 million from overseas markets this weekend. In fact, with $494 million internationally after just two weeks, it has already surpassed the lifetime international cumes of Captain America ($194M), Iron Man ($267M), Thor ($268M), Iron Man 2 ($312M), Ant-Man ($339M), Thor: The Dark World ($438M), Guardians of the Galaxy ($440M) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($455M).

All of this contributes to Disney's stranglehold on the 2016 box office where, as already mentioned, it became the fastest studio to cross $1 billion. On top of that, Disney has also become the fastest studio to reach $2 billion internationally and $3 billion globally, surpassing the previous industry records set last year in June.

Contributing to Disney's record is the weekend's #2 film, The Jungle Book, which dropped 44% this weekend and added $24.4 million to its domestic total, which is now over $287.6 million. Internationally, The Jungle Book added $24.4 million this weekend from 52 territories as its global cume is now just shy of $780 million, placing it third on the 2016 worldwide charts.

In third we find the impressive result for Open Road's Mother's Day. The ensemble feature had something of a disappointing opening weekend last week but more than made up for it this weekend with a massive, 32.5% increase this weekend, bringing in $11 million as its cume now totals $22.8 million.

Not performing so well in their second weekends, WB's Keanu dropped 65.2% with $3.28 million and Ratchet & Clank clunked its way to a $1.46 million weekend, a 70% drop.

From a per theater perspective, Captain America: Civil War was also on top. The film played in 4,226 theaters and brought in $42,390 per. Behind it was Fox Searchlight's limited release of A Bigger Splash, which brought in $114,419 from five theaters, $22,884 per.

Overall, with three films on the chart, Disney took in over $206 million this weekend, which totals more than 86% of the overall weekend. The weekend top twelve totaled $233.6 million, a 91% increase compared to last year.

Next weekend sees the release of the Blumhouse horror The Darkness and Jodie Foster's Money Monster starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O'Connell.

For a complete look at the weekend results click here.

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