Update: Article updated with final box office data
Paramount Pictures’ Captain America: The First Avenger debuted to a strong $65.059M (from 3,715 theaters) in its opening weekend. The film capitalized on a solid estimated $4M Thursday midnight to open Friday with $25.700M.
‘Captain America’ dipped 15% on Saturday to $21.943M and another 21% on Sunday to $17.415M.
Although a solid start, it was nearly $800,000 below the Sunday projection and that puts it just out of the reach of “Thor” ($65.7M) which remains the summer’s top-grossing comic book movie. It was, however, well ahead of both “X-Men: First Class” ($55.1) and “Green Lantern” ($53.2M).
Falling 72% to second place was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with $47.422M from 4,375 theaters ($273.539M cume).
The only other wide-releasing new release this weekend was the comedy Friends with Benefits which debuted in third place with a solid $18.622M from 2,926 theaters. And rounding out the top five was Transformers: Dark of the Moon in fourth place with $12.052M ($325.841M cume) and Horrible Bosses in fifth place with $11.884M ($82.567M cume).
‘Dark of the Moon’ passed the original “Transformers” in domestic box office ($319.246M) and also became the highest-grossing film in the franchise in worldwide box office with an estimated $882.441M, well ahead of the original ($709.10M) and ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ ($836.297M). ‘Dark of the Moon’ still lags ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ in domestic box office ($402.112M), but it does have a chance at passing that mark.
Source: Box Office Mojo