Original Release: April 4, 2014 Genre: Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi Running time: 136 minutes Directed by: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Screenplay by: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely Produced by: Kevin Feige Distributed by: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Budget: $170–177 million Box Office: $714.4 million

Production Photos

Trivia

Release & Reception

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released in 32 markets on March 26, 2014 and in North America on April 4, 2014, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D. The film debuted on 668 IMAX screens worldwide, a record for films releasing in April. The world premiere took place on March 13, 2014 at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Paris premiere occurred on March 17 at Le Grand Rex, the London premiere took place on March 20 at Westfield London, the Beijing premiere took place on March 24 and the Cleveland premiere took place on April 1. Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson auctioned off passes to one of the premieres for charity. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is part of Phase Two of the MCU.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned $259.8 million in North America and $454.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $714.3 million. It became the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2014 worldwide. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit for the film to be $166.2 million, when factoring together “production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs, with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV,” placing it ninth on their list of 2014’s “Most Valuable Blockbusters”.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier made $10.2 million in Thursday night showings, more than double the midnight gross of its predecessor. It set an April single-day ($36.9 million) and April opening-weekend record ($95.0 million), while its opening weekend was a 46% increase over its predecessor. The film held the number one spot at the box office for three consecutive weekends, before being overtaken by The Other Woman in its fourth weekend. It achieved the largest total gross among films released in the month of April. At the end of its theatrical run, the film became the fourth highest-grossing film of 2014 behind American Sniper, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier topped the box office on its opening weekend with $75.2 million from 32 overseas markets. The film debuted at number one in many territories, including Australia, China, and Russia and set a 3-day opening-weekend record in China among Disney films, with $38.81 million. It topped the box office outside North America on two consecutive weekends, followed by two weeks in second, behind Rio 2.

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 90% approval rating with an average score of 7.62/10, based on 295 reviews. The website’s critics consensus reads, “Suspenseful and politically astute, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a superior entry in the Avengers canon and is sure to thrill Marvel diehards.” Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 70 out of 100 based on 48 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. CinemaScore audiences gave Captain America: The Winter Soldier an “A” grade rating on an A+ to F scale.

Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said the film “takes the bold (for Marvel) step of reducing CGI spectacle to a relative minimum in favor of reviving the pleasures of hard-driving old-school action, surprising character development and intriguing suspense.” Scott Foundas of Variety said it is “chockfull of the breathless cliffhangers dictated by the genre, but equally rich in the quiet, tender character moments that made the first film unique among recent Marvel fare.” Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times considered it “another rock-solid chapter in the big-screen story of Marvel,” though he compared it unfavorably to The Avengers, Iron Man and Iron Man 3. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly noted the topicality of the film, and compared it to The Dark Knight (2008). Ty Burr of The Boston Globe said the film “delivers all the 3D CGI mayhem audiences have come to expect from the Marvel entertainment juggernaut, but there’s darkness and confusion just under its comic-book surface.” Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal praised the film’s “emotional bandwidth” and nuances, and felt it fixed all the shortcomings of The First Avenger “and then some”.

Conversely, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times characterized the film with a lack of inspiration. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, “Like many others of its type, [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] gets off to a kinetic start only to lose steam before blowing everything up.” Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph expressed disappointment with the lack of risks taken by the film compared to its “relatively spicy premise”. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle felt the film was too long, with unexciting and illegible action scenes. Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post Dispatch felt The Winter Soldier didn’t explore the issues it raised and paled in comparison to The First Avenger. Jake Coyle of the Associated Press said the film’s biggest misstep was the handling of Stan’s Winter Soldier, and that it was “getting difficult to tell the Marvel movies apart”.

Several critics have drawn comparisons between The Winter Soldier and the Metal Gear Solid video game series. Gameranx compared the film to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), stating that the first half of The Winter Soldier “feels like probably the closest movie adaptation we’ve gotten to Metal Gear Solid 2”, with similar elements including the “stealth, an evil group, CQC, and even the moral dilemma about sacrificing one’s personal liberties for the feeling of security.” Entertainment Weekly noted that the film’s opening tanker mission was “rendered as a Metal Gear Solid stealth mission”. Eye For Film also said the opening sequence “will no doubt be familiar to anyone who’s ever played Metal Gear Solid 2”.