According to Variety, Thor: Love and Thunder cost Marvel Studios and Disney a whopping $250 million to produce and $100 million more to promote. However, after spending most of the past week and the entire weekend in theaters around the globe, it appears Thor 4 is well on its way to becoming another financially fruitful venture for the MCU.
The same report also confirmed that Thor: Love and Thunder made $143 million in the U.S and more than that in theaters overseas at $159 million in its opening weekend.
In total, Thor 4 pulled in $302 million, which is the best initial outing for the series, which is led by Chris Hemsworth.
Traditionally, the Thor movies have not done well financially. The first film, which debuted in 2011, only raked in $65 million in its first few days of showing for a total of $449.3 million in its entire run. The sequel was not any better either, scoring only $644.8 million.
Thor: Ragnarok fared a lot better and marked the first time that the series would look like it would vault past the billion-dollar mark, ultimately falling short at $854 million. We still do not know where Thor: Love and Thunder will land at the end of its run, but this year's latest superhero adventure still managed to score the 12th-best weekend start in the MCU.
For what it's worth, the MCU is already invested in a fifth Thor "solo" outing, so it's not like Chris Hemsworth has a rocky future if Love and Thunder don't do well.
Speaking of doing well, Thor: Love and Thunder had mixed critical reviews. It's not nearly as divisive as the first two Thor films, but it wasn't a step-up compared to Ragnarok as most of them hoped. Thankfully, audiences seemed to like Thor 4 enough to still watch it despite facing off against other behemoths.
Minions: The Rise of Gru continues to steal the spotlight in its second weekend, en route to securing another $45.5 million to add to its ginormous global total ($399.8 million as of the time of writing) and the title as this year's highest-grossing animated film so far. Meanwhile, this year's biggest film so far, Top Gun: Maverick, continues to put a gap between it and the rest of the field with a still-growing tally of $1.18 billion. Finally, Jurassic World: Dominion is starting to slow down as it nears the $900 million mark at $876.5 million.
