‘Captain America Brave New World’ Box Office Opening Projections

Paging Sam Wilson! “Captain America: Brave New World” flies to cinemas over the weekend, and Marvel’s latest adventure hopes to thaw an icy box office.

“Captain America: Brave New World,” in which Anthony Mackie’s Avenger takes over the star-spangled shield from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, is targeting $80 million to $85 million over the traditional weekend and $90 million to $95 million through the President’s Day holiday. The $200 million-tentpole is landing in roughly 4,100 North American theaters.

The film is expected to add another $110 million at the international box office, though it’ll contend in China with “Ne Zha 2,” which has become the highest-grossing release in the country’s history with $1.1 billion and counting, and “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” which is going straight to Peacock in the U.S. but playing theatrically in the rest of the world.

Considering there’s been no stateside competition, “Captain America” will easily notch the biggest domestic debut of the year. Those projected ticket sales are somewhere in the middle of post-pandemic outings in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. They are above 2021’s “Eternals” ($71 million to start), “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” ($75 million to start) and 2023’s “The Marvels” ($46 million to start) — which were commercial disappointments by MCU standards — but below the franchise’s recent bright spots like 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” ($144 million to start), “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($187 million to start) and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” ($181 million to start), and 2023’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($118 million to start).

Other than “Deadpool & Wolverine,” last year’s billion-dollar, R-rated comic book smash that featured two of the most popular comic book characters, the MCU has been struggling at the box office. The third…