“Eternals” proved what box office analysts already knew: Marvel diehards don’t care about reviews. But after a weekend with good ticket sales but mediocre word of mouth, Chloé Zhao’s blockbuster is facing a rougher road to box office domination (and profitability) that no MCU film has faced before.
Granted, “Eternals” opened to an estimated $71 million domestically and $161 million globally, the latter being the second-highest global weekend total posted by a Hollywood film this year. Disney also noted that the film nearly matched the $167 million global opening of 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” a film that had the advantage of debuting during summer holidays in 2018.