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Kim Hollis: Thor: The Dark World got the box office jumping this weekend as it debuted with $85.7 million. What do you think of this result?

Jason Barney: I think Marvel and Disney don't have to worry about over-saturating the market for a little while. They have done their homework and it is paying off handsomely. Their comic book movie universe is unparalleled in the market right now and is the unquestioned choice of moviegoers. The run of success here is remarkable, and the scary thing is that it may not have peaked yet. Did I just write that? It is looking more and more like the next Captain America film will continue this trend, and at this point in time, Disney and Marvel have to be salivating over the long term buzz leading up to Avengers 2. The profits, the buzz, the fans, and the appeal just continue to grow.

Thor's $86 million is beyond a solid opening. It is significantly larger than the original, it shows support for a character that wasn't on anyone's radar screen a couple of years ago, and the so-so competition next week means GREAT business for the next fourteen days.

And we haven't even talked about international receipts. This is going to be big.

Edwin Davies: It's a pretty great start for the film and underlines much of the stuff we said when Iron Man 3 came out with regards to The Avengers Effect. The superhero team up has acted like a steroid which makes the constituent parts more powerful than they were before. With Iron Man 3, that took the most popular Marvel character and made him even more of a big deal, and with Thor: The Dark World it has taken an obscure character and made him an icon in his own right. Some of the credit should probably go to the first Thor, which did a good job establishing the character, but this uptick is almost certainly more due to The Avengers than Thor (it's also worth pointing out that The Dark World made much more despite selling a considerably smaller percentage of 3D tickets, suggesting overall ticket sales were way up compared to two years ago.)

The really big news for Thor lies in the international numbers. The first film did pretty well overseas compared to the other Marvel films, and the sequel has almost beaten its predecessor's overseas total in less than two weeks. It's now highly probable that Thor: The Dark World will make more worldwide than the first two Iron Man films, potentially as much as $700 to 800 million. That's huge news for Disney, who will have made over $2 billion from Iron Man 3 and Thor 2, and bodes very well for Captain America 2 and The Avengers 2.

Felix Quinonez: I think this is a great performance. Just two years ago, Thor was largely unknown and now his solo movie opened just barely shy what Skyfall grossed last year and it took James Bond decades to reach that height. Thor: The Dark World had a very healthy improvement over its predecessor and received a promising A- Cinemascore, which suggests strong legs are a possibility. I think everyone involved should be really happy. This is a huge win for Marvel/Disney and us fanboys who can't get enough of these movies. GO THOR!

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