'Avengers: Infinity War' blows up the box office: Biggest opening weekend ever

Kim Willis | USATNetwork

Show Caption Hide Caption Get to know the cast of 'Avengers: Infinity War' “Avengers: Infinity War” castmates Chadwick Boseman, Letitia Wright and Sebastian Stan talk man buns, “Black Panther” sequels and “Saturday Night Live.”

Avengers: Infinity War flexed its collective superhero muscle and made box-office history, soaring into theaters with a $250 million opening weekend, comScore estimates. It's the biggest opening of all time, smashing the record previously held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened in 2015 with almost $248 million.

Marvel's superhero extravaganza, which assembles an all-star team of Avengers to beat back cosmic supervillain Thanos (Josh Brolin) as he collects the powerful Infinity Stones, earned another $380 million internationally, for a total of $630 million worldwide. That set a new global record even before the movie opens in China (where it's slated to start May 11), a massive movie market.

Infinity War is one of six films in history to top $200 million in its opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, along with The Force Awakens ($247.96 million), Black Panther ($202 million), Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220 million), Jurassic World ($208.8 million) and the original Avengers ($207.4 million).

Accounting for inflation, The Force Awakens would still reign with about $260 million in 2018 dollars.

Critics and fans alike were pleased with the 19th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, giving it 84% positive reviews at survey site Rotten Tomatoes and an A-grade at CinemaScore. And they won't have too long to wait for the next installment, again set to star Brolin, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk: The as-yet-untitled fourth Avengers movie opens May 3, 2019.

"This isn't an old franchise that their parents saw when they were 20," Greg Foster, head of entertainment for IMAX, told the Associated Press. IMAX screenings accounted for a record $41 million of the weekend's global ticket sales. "This is theirs. The Marvel universe is the group of characters that this generation owns."

Unsurprisingly, Infinity War obliterated everything else at the box office.

John Krasinski's silent horror hit A Quiet Place was a distant second with $10.6 million in its fourth weekend (and $148.2 million total), while Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty, about a woman who awakes from a fall and sees herself in a confident new light, finished third with $8.1 million ($29.6 million total).

Dwayne Johnson's giant-animals-on-the-loose action flick Rampage was fourth with $7.1 million ($77.9 million total).

And Marvel's still-strong superhero smash Black Panther held in at No. 5 in its 11th week in theaters with $4.4 million ($688 million total and $1.3 billion worldwide).

Final numbers are expected Monday.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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