Pamela McClintock of THR:
Continuing Marvel and Disney's enviable winning streak, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is making history at the global box office, debuting to a record-breaking $96.2 million in North America for an early worldwide total of $303.3 million.
In only 10 days overseas, the sequel has already taken in $207.1 million -- eclipsing the entire foreign run of Captain America: The First Avenger ($193.9 million). Domestically, Captain America 2, playing in 3,938 locations, scored the top April opening of all time. The film has a strong shot of surpassing the entire global gross of The First Avenger ($370.6 million) by the end of next weekend.
Universal's 2011 Fast Five was the previous record-holder for top April opening ($86.2 million).
Thanks to the strong launch of Captain America 2 -- which essentially kicks off the summer box office a month early -- revenue was up 22 percent year-over-year, while Disney crossed the $1 billion mark globally in terms of 2014 ticket sales (adding icing to the cake, Frozen surpassed The Dark Knight over the weekend to become the No. 9 top-grossing film of all time worldwide).
Captain America 2, directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, nabbed an A CinemaScore across all demos, as well as stellar reviews from critics.
Overseas, where it opened ahead of its North American launch, the $170 million tentpole took in $107.1 million for the weekend from 50 markets.
The follow-up is certainly benefiting from the post-Avengers glow. Like the first Thor, The First Avenger launched to roughly $65 million domestically in July 2011. But the wild success of 2012's The Avengers has seen fortunes rise for the Iron Man and Thor franchises.
Returning Chris Evans in the title role, as well as Avengers stars Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson, Captain America 2 picks up two years after Avengers left off. Captain America and Black Widow (Johansson) discover there is a secret conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D. and fight to stop it, along with The Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie. (Some critics have described the film as an intriguing espionage tale, versus never-ending action.) The villainous Winter Soldier is played by Sebastian Stan.
With Captain America 2 commanding such devotion, Darren Aronofsky's controversial biblical epic Noah fell more than 60 percent domestically in its second weekend, in line with expectations. The event movie, placing No. 2, grossed $17 million from 3,751 locations for a domestic total of $72.3 million.
Overseas, Noah, from Paramount and New Regency, sailed past the $100 million mark internationally, taking in $45.6 million from 45 markets for a foreign total of $106.2 million and global cume of $178.5 million.
Coming in No. 3 in its third weekend in North America was Summit's Divergent with $13 million from 3,631 theaters, a 49 percent decline and pushing its domestic total to $114 million through Sunday.
Freestyle Releasing's Christian film God's Not Dead continues to pull in impressive numbers, posing competition for Noah for faith-based moviegoers. God's Not Dead, expanding into a total of 1,758 theaters in its third outing, placed No. 4 with $7.7 million for a domestic total of $32.5 million. The movie fell roughly 22 percent, although its not an apples-to-apples comparison, since it added so many theaters.
Bombing at the specialty box office was Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac: Vol. 2, which debuted to $75,000 from 30 theaters for a negligible location average of $2,500. The sexual opus, already available on VOD, fared even worse than the first installment, which debuted last month in select theaters.
Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson, nabbed the top location average of the weekend ($35,000) as it opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, grossing $140,000 for A24 Films.
Next Up: Kevin Costner plays the general manager of a professional football team struggling to find the right player to select with their top overall Draft Day pick; Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard wrote the script for the supernatural horror pic Oculus in which two sibling orphans witness a haunted mirror killing someone - a murder the young brother (Brenton Thwaites) is charged with. Now rehabilitated and in his twenties, the brother wants to move on but his sister (Doctor Who's Karen Gillan) is determined to prove the truth about the mirror; It's a jungle out there for Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway) and their three kids in the CG animated sequel Rio 2
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