UPDATE, FRIDAY: Adding 18 material offshore markets on Thursday, Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok has lifted its early international box office cume to $28M. That brings the play to 28 markets thus far and includes several industry-best October openings. That’s the case in Australia where the Taika Waititi-helmed refresh on the series started with $2M including previews ($1.4M sans).

Elsewhere, Brazil got its Hulk on with $1.6M and 89% market share — again an October best. Same goes for Malaysia ($600K opening/$1M with previews) and New Zealand ($200K/$400K with previews). In the Netherlands, the Chris Hemsworth-starrer hammered out $300K ($400K with previews) for the 2nd biggest October opening day ever behind only Spectre. Overall, the film is No. 1 in all markets save Italy where IT is currently tops after a record-breaking launch last frame.

These mid-week openings are providing an early glimpse of what’s to come at the weekend. Thor 3 is running ahead of Doctor Strange which bowed at the same time last year. It’s also substantially ahead of the last film in the series, Thor: The Dark World. Once the weekend dials in, the position versus comps (ie Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 which opened on a Friday) will be much cleaner and clearer.

The Top 5 hubs on Ragnarok through Thursday are the UK ($6.7M), Korea ($3.8M — unofficial reports out of the market have it at $6.2M through today, Friday), France ($3M), Australia ($2M) and Taiwan ($1.7M).

Today adds Spain, Iceland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and Vietnam. That’s all ahead of the domestic bow next session when China and Japan also open.

PREVIOUS, THURSDAY: Disney/Marvel’s highly-anticipated threequel, Thor: Ragnarok, is now thundering in 10 material overseas markets. The UK started rollout on a non-traditional Tuesday with Korea and France notably getting the Led out on Wednesday. The estimated haul through Wednesday is $12.8M.

The Taika Waitit-directed refresh of the series is still in very early play. But numbers are encouraging and running slightly ahead of comp Doctor Strange which opened last year at this time. Natch, they’re considerably higher than 2013’s Thor: The Dark World. Disney is caveating that a comp so far to Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 isn’t fair given GOTG2 opened in the UK on a Friday. However, the numbers there (see below) are very solid, and it’s worth noting that Korea is over-performing versus GOTG2.

To wit: Korea’s bow on Thor 3 was the biggest industry opening day ever for an October release. (Unofficially, yet notably, local reporting has Korea at $3.8M after two days.)

Elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan saw the biggest industry opening day ever for an October release and Indonesia hammered out the 6th biggest industry all-time opening day.

The top opening markets so far on the Chris Hemsworth-starrer are: the UK ($4.8M), Korea ($2.3M), France ($1.9M), Taiwan ($1.2M) and Indonesia ($900K).

Thor: Ragnarok continues rolling out this weekend and will be open in around 52% of the international marketplace by Sunday. Thursday’s launches include Australia and Brazil along with Croatia, Czech Rep, Denmark, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Argentina, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Colombia.