Marvel (and parent company Disney) celebrated a coup this weekend as Captain America: Civil War, the thirteenth film in the coin-minting Marvel Cinematic Universe, became the 25th movie to enter the $1 billion club. The film has racked over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, handily becoming the global best-seller for the year 2016 – it’s still second domestically behind Deadpool but only trails that other Marvel creation by about $15 million, mere pocket change.
This past weekend, the film earned upwards of $33 million at the North American box office, falling to second place behind champ The Angry Birds Movie but has earned an estimated $347 million since opening on May 6th. Captain America: Civil War‘s box office dominance marks another huge hit for Marvel but also for Disney, which has had a hell of year – they started out 2016 with the record breaking Star Wars: The Force Awakens, rebooting a venerable franchise and experienced two in-house blockbusters in Zootopia and The Jungle Book.
Captain America: Civil War marks the fourth MCU film to crack $1 billion worldwide following The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Marvel will have another chance to break the box office later this year when Doctor Strange arrives in theaters on November 4th. Next year will likely prove further dominance as their ambitious slate will include Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (May 5, 2017), Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7, 2017) and Thor: Ragnarok (November 3, 2017.