This Monday is President's Day, a statutory holiday in the United States, and together with the weekend, it forms a three-day holiday. This has always been a period when Hollywood studios are happy to launch blockbuster works. This year, the film that is highly anticipated is the Marvel superhero movie "Captain America 4" (Captain America: Brave New World) produced by Disney.
Last weekend, Captain America 4 opened in 4,105 theaters in North America and earned $88.5 million in the opening box office, exceeding industry expectations. Driven by the film, the total North American box office for the entire weekend reached $156 million, which is not only the best so far this year, but also the box office results of the previous six weekends were at least 50% lower than this weekend.
Captain America 4 poster
As the first Hollywood blockbuster in 2025, Captain America 4 is also the highest-grossing film in North America so far this year. Especially considering the poor reputation of the film - the "Rotten Tomatoes" freshness is only 51%, which is only better than the 47% of "Eternals" and 46% of "Ant-Man 3" among all Marvel movies; the audience's score after the screening is only B-, which is the lowest score in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - it is indeed unexpected for many experts in the industry to finally get such an opening result. Captain America 4 has also become the fourth best opening performance of the President's Day schedule after "Black Panther" in 2018, "Deadpool" in 2016 and "Ant-Man 3" in 2023.
Indeed, the popularity index of Captain America 4 on multiple social media platforms in the United States was only half of that of Deadpool and Wolverine, and even much lower than Thor 4 in 2022. Before the release, the most representative social media posts included highly praised messages such as "I remember a time when I was full of expectations for Marvel movies, but when I saw the posters and trailers of Captain America 4, I felt nothing", "I hope this movie can be made well, but I can't get rid of the feeling that this movie is cannon fodder. Please prove me wrong, Disney".
In addition, Anthony Mackie's remarks during the promotion of the film in Italy that Captain America's image cannot represent the United States sparked controversy online, especially among a group of American Internet celebrities with right-wing views, who criticized his remarks as outright anti-American. Although Mackie later clarified this, emphasizing that he is proud to be an American, the negative impact also made the industry worry that it would be unfavorable to the box office.
The final result surprised the experts. If there is any explanation, it can only be said that there is still some iron in a rotten boat. Even though the overall quality of Marvel Universe movies has long been declining, it still relies on its past reputation and the public's habit of watching movies, especially in the face of the scarcity of similar blockbusters since 2025, it will eventually attract a large number of audiences.
The second place in the weekend box office list was "Paddington Bear 3: Peru Adventure" distributed by Sony Pictures. The film was released in 3,890 theaters and earned $13 million in the opening box office - compared with the second part of 2016, which opened in North America with $11.1 million, it has made some progress.
Paddington Bear is adapted from the children's series by British writer Michael Bond and has been loved by audiences around the world. The first film, released in 2014, earned $326 million at the global box office, and the second film, released in 2017, earned $290 million at the global box office. The third film was produced by French film and television company Studio Canal with a full investment of $90 million. So far, the total box office outside North America has reached $115 million. It is still difficult for its global box office to catch up with the first two films.
"Nezha 2" international version poster
The fifth place in the weekend box office list is the new Chinese box office champion "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King". The overseas distribution of the film was handled by China Media Capital. It was released in 660 theaters in North America over the weekend and earned $7.3 million in the opening box office. This result ranks third in the opening box office of Chinese-language films in North American film history, second only to "Huo Yuanjia" in 2006 (10.56 million US dollars) and "Hero" in 2004 (17.8 million US dollars). "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, only earned $660,000 in the first weekend of that year (only in 16 theaters).
What is particularly noteworthy is that the average box office performance of "Nezha 2" per theater ($11,000) is very good, ranking third among all movies throughout the weekend, second only to "Captain America 4" with $21,559 and "Universal Language" with $20,560, which was only released in two theaters.
As for reviews, as of press time, "Nezha 2" has not yet been rated on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which collect professional film critics' ratings. On Letterboxd, known as the "American Douban", "Nezha 2" currently has a score of 3.7 out of 5, which is better than the 3.5 of the first film.
