THOR: THE DARK WORLD Breaks $600 Million Worldwide

Thor: The Dark World isn’t a perfect film by any means, but it was a giant upgrade from the painfully dull original installment from 2011 and audiences have embraced it. BoxOfficeMojo reports that Marvel’s second film in Phase Two is on pace to become the studio’s third highest grossing film (also second highest grossing Marvel sequel), sitting-pretty with just over $600 million and a few more international markets still to release the film such as Japan, The Dark World will surpass Iron Man 2‘s (Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 budgets were $30 million more than Dark World) $623 million worldwide take. Many believe that Catching Fire knocked the wind out of the film’s box office, but it still seems to be sluggishly still earning money and possibly ending it’s run around $200 million more than the original.

Those numbers will likely be broken again when Captain America: The Winter Solider and Guardians of The Galaxy rollout in 2014, as the reaction to Winter Solider‘s trailer has been overwhelmingly positive and Guardians could be a giant success story this summer if it ends up half-way decent, but for the moment Dark World is doing solid business. Only to be destroyed even more by Age of Ultron in 2015, which is expected to even outdo The Avenger‘s $1.5 billion. The Marvel blueprint has proven post-Avengers that world audiences are fascinated by these characters, even if Dark World‘s domestic numbers aren’t as big as the other films. A third sequel has been hinted by actors and Kevin Feige which very well could be apart of Phase Three plans.

It’s similar to the downgrading of the success of The Wolverine which didn’t do very well at the domestic box office, earning a poultry $132 million while worldwide raking-in $414 million making it the second highest grossing X-Men film (which consists of six films), only behind X-Men 3: The Last Stand. The film’s budget was confirmed by James Mangold at around $117 million, the second lowest budget of an X-Men film (the first being 2000’s X-Men at $75 million).

SOURCE: BoxOfficeMojo