- The latest Marvel Studios (DIS +0.9%) film, Eternals, splashed at the weekend box office with a $71 million opening, far and away the top grosser for the period. But some observers had hoped it could hit $75 million-$80 million.
- The win for Eternals bumps Dune (T -1.1%), the leader from the last two weeks. Dune scored $7.6 million in its third weekend
- Trailing Dune in the top five films were No Time to Die (OTC:MGMB, CMCSA -0.7%) with $6.2 million; Venom: Let There Be Carnage (SONY +0.2%) with $4.5 million; and Ron's Gone Wrong (DIS +0.9%) with $3.6 million. (Those were trailed immediately by The French Dispatch (DIS +0.9%), the arthouse release that added 417 screens for its third weekend and drew a very healthy $2.6 million - outperforming Halloween Kills (CMCSA -0.7%) despite appearing in fewer than half the theaters).
- Disney now says that Eternals opened with a worldwide gross of $161.7 million, pulling a healthy $14.4 million in South Korea and $7.1 million in the UK. That's the second-best worldwide debut this year behind F9.
- Back in June, F9 (CMCSA -0.9%) - the latest film in the nine-entry Fast & the Furious franchise - easily became the best-opening film of the pandemic era at that time, with $70 million.
- That debut has since been surpassed by the openings of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (DIS, $75.4 million), Black Widow (DIS, $80.4 million) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (SONY, $90 million) - and now Eternals (NYSE:DIS) with $71 million.
- In cinema stocks today: (AMC +6.9%); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWF +6.5%); Cinemark (CNK -1.9%); (IMAX +0.9%); Marcus (MCS -0.8%); Reading International (RDI +2.1%); Cineplex (OTCPK:CPXGF +1.6%); National CineMedia (NCMI +2.7%).
