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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness may have landed some mixed reviews from critics for being another heavily interlinked Marvel adventure, but that hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference when it comes to the movie’s box office standings at the end of its first weekend. As expected, the first Marvel theatrical release of 2022 has seen off all competition at the worldwide box office to claim the biggest opening weekend of the year so far and is already the third highest-grossing movie of the year with $450 million, as per Box Office Mojo. The total also gives it the fourth-highest opening for an MCU movie.
Sam Raimi’s dark trip into the Marvel multiverse with Doctor Strange has doubled the opening weekend takings of The Batman, and will likely pass that movie’s total gross in the next week or so, proving that despite the constant complaints about Marvel movies being too reliant on audiences having already watched the previous movies, and now Disney+ TV shows, before delving into new films. With Thor: Love and Thunder arriving in just two months’ time, this is certainly going to be an encouraging result for Marvel studios.
Multiverse of Madness brings with it the usual links to past Marvel movies, continuing Strange’s story from Spider-Man: No Way Home, incorporating story threads from Avengers: Endgame and 2016’s Doctor Strange. However, this time around, for the first time, the movie also has strong links to a number of Disney+ series such as WandaVision, What If…? and Loki. This means that to get the best out of the movie, it is best to have some knowledge of more than just Marvel’s theatrical releases from here on out.