Box Office: 'Black Widow' opens with $39.5 million, shattering pandemic records

As expected, 'Black Widow' is crushing the box office numbers. Marvel Studios is back to its big number game after the first theatrical release ever since the pandemic started. After a much delay, Marvel first female superhero stand-alone movie 'Black Widow' finally hit the big screen in North American theatres and broke the biggest single-day gross in the pandemic era. 

The superhero movie raked in mighty $39.5 million from 4,160 theatres on Friday, smashing the record of a pandemic-era domestic box office in the US. Starting with the Thursday previews raking up to $ 13.2 million followed by Friday's  $26.3 million.

As per reports, the movie is expected to earn $ 87.8 million over the opening weekend, the highest since the pandemic hit so far, which would beat the benchmark previously set by Vin Diesel 'F9' and it's $70 million debuts. 

Looking at the international market, the Cate Shortland-directed movie debuted in many international markets, including Germany, Russia, Australia, Japan, Korea, Brazil, UK, France and Mexico. As per Deadline, the collection is estimated at $22.4M in 41 material markets. The movie missed many major markets which are still affected by COVID-19 including Taiwan, India, parts of Australia. The movie still don't have a China release date (China is one of the biggest international markets for Marvel movies). 

The release of 'Black Widow' in India is still unclear though, cinemas in many states are still closed following the second wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As we all know, Natasha is dead in 'Avengers: Infinity War', so the movie takes place after 'Captain America: Civil War', where we find Natasha on the run from the government as she deals with her history, as a former Soviet spy, a KGB operative before being recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D and then later, Avengers as well as her broken relationships before she became an Avenger. 

‘Black Widow’ was originally scheduled for release on May 1, 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.