Disney and Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” has hammered the box office into submission with a domestic opening weekend debut of $143 million.
That’s a bigger start than its predecessor with 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok” which opened to $123 million domestically, and the third biggest opening weekend of the year behind “Jurassic World Dominion” ($145 million) and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($185 million).
The film easily came in ahead of everyone else with the second weekend of “Minions: The Rise of Gru” earning $45.5 million (down 57%), while “Top Gun: Maverick” held strong with a further $15.5 million in its seventh weekend of release. Internationally the new “Thor” opened ahead of expectations with $159 million from 47 markets, pushing its global tally to $302 million.
One place the film won’t be helped by is China. THR reports that China’s film regulators haven’t granted the film a release date yet and may not ever do so. Sources tell the trade they expect the reasoning will be due to fleeting moments in the movie involving LGBTQ characters.
Said moments include suggestions that the character Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) is bisexual and Korg (voiced by Waititi) is gay. “Thor: Ragnarok” earned $112 million in China back in 2017, but the country has essentially not let a Marvel film score a release since “Spider-Man: Far From Home” in 2019 for various reasons.
Source: Variety
