Captain America Rules at the Box Office

Disney has found something to dethrone the British boy wizard. It’s Captain America. The First Avenger leaped into first place with a weekend box office of an estimated $66 million. Harry Potter descended to a more earthly $48 million. Disney’s two animated films Cars 2, $5.7 million, and Winnie the Pooh, $5.1 million, came in 7th and 8th respectively.

If you’re wondering, that sound you heard was Disney’s pocketbooks opening to green light as many Marvel projects as they can. They do have a problem in Orlando, however. Universal Studios has a license to use about a dozen of the most popular Marvel characters in its parks. I believe that includes Captain America.

Therefore, look for the first Marvel characters to show up at Disneyland in California. Right now we’ve heard of plans to change the Innoventions attraction into a ‘Stark Expo’ style attraction. I’m a bit worried that adding superheros to Tomorrowland will end up weakening the theme like the cartoon characters have done to Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland. But I think Stark Expo could actually work as long as the focus is on new technologies, just with that Iron Man backstory.

In the meantime, get out and see Captain America, then return for The Avengers next may. Speaking of which, a new poster for The Avengers has been released. It’s a series of posters all united into one big poster.

What do you think? How would you fit Marvel into the parks?