LOS ANGELES  -  “Captain America: Brave New World” was No. 1 at the weekend box office and is projected to finish as one of the highest-grossing Presidents’ Day weekend openers. According to Comscore estimates, the fourth “Captain America” film grossed about $88.5 million in domestic sales Friday through Sunday. It’s expected to surpass $100 million through the remainder of the holiday weekend to become the No. 4 highest-grossing Presidents’ Day weekend opener, edging out “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which grossed $93 million over the four days in 2015, but behind three other Marvel films: “Black Panther” ($242 million) in 2018, “Deadpool” ($152 million) in 2016 and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($120 million) in 2023.  “This sets into motion a revival in interest in the MCU, getting the audiences back on board and where they have to see each of these movies because it all ties together,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, told CNN. The debut weekend for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 35th movie is in line with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” ($95 million), in April 2014, but not as successful as “Captain America: Civil War” ($179 million) in May 2016. “Captain America: The First Avenger” in its opening weekend in July 2011, grossed $65 million, which equates to about $91 million when adjusted for inflation. “Captain America: Brave New World” didn’t shatter any records for Disney’s lucrative MCU franchise, but it was nowhere near the bottom. “The Marvels,” which debuted in November 2023, had the franchise’s lowest-performing opening weekend at $46 million.

Marvel, which has drawn huge box-office returns since “Iron Man” in 2008, has seen underwhelming opening-weekend figures in recent years. The R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which opened in July 2024 and raked in more than $200 million in its opening weekend, was an outlier for the latest MCU releases, said Daniel Loria, editorial director at The Boxoffice Company. While February isn’t a typical month to see big box-office returns, Disney has released some Marvel films during Presidents’ Day weekend.

Historically, superhero movies have proven to be successful even when they don’t have a summer release date. The aforementioned “Deadpool,” “Black Panther” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” are examples of record-setting movies in normally sleepy February. “We tend to focus on records a little too much at times, just because that was the norm pre-pandemic,” Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory, told CNN. “But at the same time, I think we’re seeing a year-to-year increase in terms of Presidents’ Day weekends.”  Hollywood usually starts the year off slowly as studios usually wait until May to release their most commercially viable movies. The overall box office is up 22% compared to last year, due in part to the SAG-AFTRA strike that disrupted the 2024 release calendar, according to Dergarabedian.

“Captain America” is one of two major releases slated to debut in the first quarter, Loria noted. The other is Disney’s “Snow White,” which is set for March 21.

“We’ve seen a lot of family movies in particular do well lately, and that’s a very important sign of health for movie theaters and for the box office,” Robbins said.

Robbins noted that Disney will release three Marvel films in 2025, which could improve the brand’s reputation and give a boost to theaters. Along with “Captain America,” “Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” are set to open in May and July, respectively. The overall domestic box office reached $8.7 billion in 2024, down 3.4% from 2023. Loria projects full-year ticket sales in 2025 could reach at least $9.3 billion or as much as $9.7 billion, the highest post-pandemic total.