Disney/Marvel’s magic-filled latest conjured $85 million from 3,882 theaters its opening weekend, besting predictions of a $70 million take.

This is the tenth largest opening for a Marvel movie finishing just behind Thor: The Dark World, the only other film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to open in November.

Boosted by 3-D and IMAX ticket sales, Strange also notched the 13th-best November opening of all time and the 14th-consecutive No. 1 debut for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (out of 14 films). The film has grossed $325.4 million worldwide in just 13 days, after opening in international markets last month.

Compared to over single-character intros in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Doctor Strange dramatically outperformed Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, which opened with $65 million and $66 million respectively, last year’s release of Ant-Man, which debuted with $57 million, and The Incredible Hulk, which opened with $55.4 million in June 2008. Only Iron Man, with $98.6 million ($102.1m including previews) back in Summer 2008, had a larger opening.

The review embargo has been lifted and judging from the early reviews Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange will bring magic to the Marvel Universe on November 4th. . .a little strange goes a long way.

Dr. Stephen Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) life changes after a car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he looks for healing, and hope, in a mysterious enclave. He quickly learns that the enclave is at the front line of a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying reality. Before long, Strange is forced to choose between his life of fortune and status or leave it all behind to defend the world as the most powerful sorcerer in existence.

What the critics are saying:

Total Film – James Mottram

Cumberbatch fits Doctor Strange like a pair of snap-tight surgical gloves, in yet another MCU triumph. Beautifully designed, brilliantly executed.

The Daily Beast – Jen Yamato 

Broadening the consciousness of the mind, and by extension the conscientiousness of the soul, is one of the decidedly atypical end goals Doctor Strange has in its sights in spite of the minefield of superhero origin story clichés it sweeps across to get there. Stacked with an excellent cast led by Benedict Cumberbatch and the singular Tilda Swinton in a captivating and controversial role, it’s the most dazzling technical achievement of the franchise whose visual delights are worth the ticket price alone.

 

The Hollywood Reporter – Todd McCarthy

Yes, this new project shares the same look, feel, and fancy corporate sheen as the rest of Marvel’s rapidly expanding Avengers portfolio, but it also boasts an underlying originality and freshness missing from the increasingly cookie-cutter comic-book realm of late.

 

The Guardian – Peter Bradshaw

To his credit, director Scott Derrickson…navigates through the different zones with a fair degree of actual coherence, and delivers the entire package with evident ease and some flair.

USA Today – Brian Truitt

It’s a tremendously engaging and likeable superhero ride, in which the classiest of casts show they know exactly where to take it seriously – and where to inject the fun.

 

TheWrap – Alonso Duralde

Derrickson (Sinister) crafts a trippy phantasmagoria for Strange to fly screaming through as he begins his path to sorcerer supreme. The only thing missing is a Doors jam as the sequence unfolds a dizzying blend of psychedelia, geometric oddities and nightmarish dreamscapes.

 

The action climaxes with a truly impressive finale, one that employs time going in multiple directions that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in a movie before. The effects shots here aren’t just visually impressive; they actually let the narrative go to places it couldn’t without this level of, you’ll pardon the expression, wizardry.

 

 

 Variety – Peter Debruge

The key is an in-on-the-joke script, which Derrickson co-wrote with Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill, that ingeniously navigates major plot potholes even as it saddles its actors with ludicrous dialogue. But what actors!

 

The 13-year gap between 2003’s Finding Nemo and its 2016 sequel didn’t seem to be a problem for the Disney’s Pixar juggernaut.

Once again, Disney finds itself atop the weekend box office for the eleventh time this year. Disney’s Finding Dory  made huge box office waves this weekend, setting a new opening weekend record by an animated motion picture bringing in $136.2 Million from 4,305 theaters for a $31,634 per theater average. It’s an opening comparable to the 90+% bumps both sequels in the Toy Story franchise saw over their predecessors with Dory‘s opening weekend serving as a 93.8% bump over Finding Nemo‘s $70.2 million opening back in 2003.

The release is another 2016 animated hit for the studio on the heels of Zootopia, as Dory exceeded expectations pulling in over $54 million on Friday, including $9.2 million from Thursday night previews (also a record for an animated feature), Finding Dory handily bested the previous animated weekend record holder, 2007’s Shrek the Third, by around $15 million (unadjusted for inflation).

Dory also scored an “A” CinemaScore and played to an audience that was 45% male vs. 55% female. The age breakdown saw 65% of the audience being made up by families and 32% of the overall audience made up of children 12 and under.

The Nemo brand has ballooned over the years, the film has spawned video games, merchandise, and theme park attractions around the world, making it a time-tested, modern icon among Disney’s filmography.

Kicking off the summer box office in super-heroic style Captain America: Civil War scorched the weekend box office, bringing in $181.8 million , the fifth largest opening weekend of all-time. In terms of opening-weekend rankings, Civil War shot past Iron Man 3($174 million) to come in at No. 5 behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens($248 million), Jurassic World ($208.8 million), The Avengers ($207.4 million) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.3 million), not accounting for inflation. Put another way, Disney claims four of the five top openings (Jurassic World was released by Universal). 

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.

Combined with its international release a week earlier, Civil War has now earned $678.4 million global and 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).

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. 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.