Thor hammers his rivals with a blockbuster haul
Thor: Love and Thunder, starring Australian Chris Hemsworth, has enjoyed a blockbuster debut, topping this weekend’s North American box office with an estimated $US143m haul ($210m).
Marvel’s latest superhero instalment Thor: Love and Thunder, starring Australia’s own Chris Hemsworth, has enjoyed a blockbuster debut, hammering competition to top this weekend’s North American box office with an estimated $US143m haul ($210m).
“This is another excellent Marvel opening for a series that started in 2011 and has grown with each episode,” said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research, adding that the film nearly doubled the average take for a fourth episode superhero movie.
The comedic follow-up to 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok stars a muscle-clad and self-parodying Hemsworth as the space Viking who wields the mallet Mjolnir, but also finds himself pining for his ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), whose help he enlists to battle the evil god butcher Gorr (Christian Bale).
Thor easily beat out Minions: The Rise of Gru, which slipped to second spot after a phenomenal opening weekend over the July 4th holiday in the US.
The latest instalment in Universal’s animated Despicable Me franchise about the reformed super-villain Gru and his yellow Minions took in $US45.5m.
Holding steady in third was Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick, the crowd-pleasing sequel to the original 1986 film that once again features Tom Cruise as cocky US Navy test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
The fighter ace feature, in its seventh week in cinemas, has grossed more than $US597m.
Baz Luhrmann’s music biopic Elvis – starring Austin Butler as the King alongside Tom Hanks as his exploitative manager Colonel Tom Parker – slipped one spot to fourth in the Warner Bros film’s third weekend of release, at $US11m.
Rounding out the top five was Jurassic World: Dominion, Universal’s sixth instalment in the Jurassic Park franchise, at $US8.4m. The latest dinosaur frightfest stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard alongside franchise originals Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum.
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