‘Thor: The Dark World’ Thunders to $86 Million Box-Office Opening

“Thor: The Dark World” brought down the hammer this weekend, thundering to No. 1 at the U.S. box office with a estimated $86 million.

Disney’s Marvel superhero sequel rode the wave of momentum from last year’s “The Avengers” – as “Iron Man 3” did earlier this year – to the year’s fourth-biggest opening. It didn’t match the U.S. debuts of those two Marvel films, the biggest-ever at $207 million and $174 million respectively, but the $170 million 3D epic blew past the first weekend of the pre-“Avengers” original “Thor.”