Captain Marvel is out now in theaters

Captain Marvel is now Marvel’s $1 billion woman.

In its three-and-a-half weeks or so in theaters, Captain Marvel has hauled in $358 million domestically and $645 million internationally to bring its worldwide total a little over the $1 billion mark, according to Variety. The movie is now Marvel’s eighth (out of 21) most successful movie on North American soil, and overall, it has Marvel’s seventh-biggest box office of all time.

This post contains spoilers regarding the plot of Captain Marvel.

When Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, returns to Earth in next month’s Avengers: Endgame, she’ll be coming back to a different world, in part because it’ll be 23 years older than when she left it in 1995.

After an explosive opening weekend at the box office that brought in $455 million worldwide, Captain Marvel continued to soar in week two: Marvel Studios’ first woman-led superhero movie made an estimated $69.3 million domestically and $120 million internationally in its second week in theaters. That brings its total to $266 million domestically and $760 million worldwide over two weekends.

That means Captain Marvel has already outpaced the lifetime domestic box office hauls of many of its Marvel peers, including 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2016’s Doctor Strange, and 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. It currently ranks as the 13th-most-successful Marvel movie in North America to date, and could easily move up the list.

Captain Marvel has two end credits scenes: a mid-credits scene that directly ties in to next month’s Avengers: Endgame, and a post-credits scene that’s a little less gasp-worthy and a little more joking, but still connects to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In addition to the end credits scenes, the movie contains a cameo by the late Stan Lee, and a special bumper — the animated Marvel logo introduction that appears before every Marvel Studios movie — in honor of the legendary Marvel creator. Usually it’s Marvel’s heroes who appear as part of the bumper, but in the one preceding Captain Marvel, Lee replaces each one. Meanwhile, Lee’s cameo in the movie is a reference to his cameo (as himself) in Mallrats. Lee died in 2018, and it’s unclear how many cameos he filmed for then-unreleased films before his death, but his last reported cameos are in April’s Avengers: Endgame and July’s Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel has introduced a slew of new characters that will change the fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain Marvel herself is Earth’s last great hope against Thanos, and the new movie marks the first time fans have gotten to see the photon-wielding superhero in action. The Skrulls, with their shape-shifting abilities, could twist the MCU’s established relationships and organizations into pretzels if they so choose — Avengers included. And the Kree aliens, some of whom Captain Marvel revealed to be warmongers and propagandists, seem to be more nefarious and threatening that we thought.

The dust has barely settled from Captain Marvel’s grand entrance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and her movie’s massive box office haul) and she’s already on to the next adventure: teaming up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Endgame.

On Thursday, Marvel released a brand new trailer for Endgame, the epic conclusion to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and, on a larger scale, the not-quite-final-but-decade-capping chapter of Marvel moviemaking that began with Iron Man in 2008.

After 11 years of Marvel moviemaking, Captain Marvel has made history simply by existing. The film, about a fighter pilot turned alien soldier turned cosmic superhero, is the first in Marvel Studios cinematic history that centers on a woman superhero.

Granted, every Marvel movie comes with built-in buzz — the studio’s cinematic strategy of linking universes and plots throughout different films guarantees as much. But on top of tying into Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers team-up movie that will serve as a capstone for 20-plus Marvel movies, Captain Marvel has already generated an astonishing amount of conversation.

Captain Marvel, like its titular hero, soared to new heights and uncharted territory at the box office in its opening weekend, bringing in a $153 million domestic haul and $455 worldwide.

To put that in perspective, the movie’s worldwide opening weekend is the sixth largest in history, according to Box Office Mojo, and the second largest for a Marvel film aside from 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. Domestically, Captain Marvel scored Marvel’s seventh-largest opening weekend; it also scored Marvel’s second-largest domestic opening weekend for a film that isn’t a sequel or an Avengers team-up (behind Black Panther, which earned $202 million domestically when it opened in 2018).

About halfway through Captain Marvel, I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about.

The latest film addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Brie Larson as (spoilers follow!) Vers, an alien fighter who crash-lands on Earth in 1995 and learns about her previous life as human pilot Carol Danvers while fighting a variety of bad guys. It has been controversial since before it opened, largely because Larson said in an interview last month that she wanted to make her press days more inclusive of nonwhite, non-male journalists. This caused a furor among men’s rights activists, “incels,” and other internet misogynists, who claimed that Larson hated men and was ruining Marvel.

Captain Marvel, the latest dispatch from the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, was made to seem like it had the entire franchise riding on its shoulders. In some ways, it does.

Not only is it the last film released before the events of Avengers: Endgame (a movie that acts as, if not a period, then at least a very climactic comma within the MCU), but in the 20 films that encompass the franchise, Captain Marvel is the first to feature a solo female superhero. In a profile on its star, Brie Larson, the Hollywood Reporter described it as “the movie that definitely will not determine the entire fate of women forever and ever. Except that it will, a little.”

The first time I realized that Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, traveled with an entourage was in 2013. Toward the tail end of New York Comic Con, tucked deep into the heart of the Javits Center, was the standing-room-only “Women of Marvel” panel.

Attending the panel were Captain Marvels of every size, shape, color, and gender. Many were dressed in her various uniforms, dating back to the character’s introduction in 1968. Some had her now-signature mohawk. Others donned her traditional black mask or her newer space commander helmet. The one thing that unified them all was their love for Carol Danvers.

“Higher. Further. Faster. More.” For the past seven years, that motto has been Captain Marvel’s motivation, and the credo behind the character’s best stories. Those stories indulge Air Force captain–turned–cosmic superhero Carol Danvers and her unquenchable thirst for exploration, leaning into her competitive tendencies and giving her the audacity to consistently risk everything, even if it means failure. The result, and what makes Carol’s interstellar adventures as Captain Marvel so appealing, is a female power fantasy — one that revolts against the real terrestrial injustices that mire women and girls by ignoring those injustices entirely.

What’s more, as Carol comes to life on the big screen and joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she becomes the last hero to join the Avengers before they take on Thanos in next month’s Avengers: Endgame. She represents Earth’s last hope.

In 1980, Carol Danvers was part of perhaps the most irresponsible story Marvel Comics has ever put to paper. The plot involved kidnapping, inter-dimensional roofies, and rape, and it ended with Danvers riding off into the sunset with her rapist as her Avengers teammates wiped away tears of joy.

Today, however, Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel, a feminist icon in her self-titled comic book. And in 2018, she is going to be Marvel’s first female superhero since 2005 to have her own movie.