SATURDAY AM: Marvel Studios once again is putting the weekend box office back at pre-pandemic levels, with
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaminting
$46M Friday (including Thursday’s $17.5M) — the third-highest opening day in February after
Black Panther ($75.9M, 2018) and
Deadpool ($47.3M, 2016) — for what is still shaping up to be a
$100M weekend, with 4-day at
$115M.
Rivals have the Peyton Reed-directed sequel much higher, with a 4-day in the $125M-$134M range, Sunday business always being a swing factor. As we figured, very strong walk-up business here, with 62% of the audience either buying their ticket the day before or the day-of. The third-best opening ever for February and Presidents Day weekend and the best debut ever for the
Ant-Man franchise — who can complain about that?
All of this spells a 4-day weekend where all films are estimated to make
$172.6M, which is an amazing 13% ahead of 2019’s pre-pandemic Presidents Day weekend and 55% ahead of
last year’s February holiday, when Sony opened
Uncharted.
Essentially, dollars are beating audience exits (B CinemaScore here for
Ant-Man 3, Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak still at 3.5 stars and 75%) and critical scores of 47% — similar to the lows that
Eternals hit in 2021. The difference here for fans:
Ant-Man 3 has the new MCU villain Kang the Conqueror, while
Eternals was impossible to understand. In PostTrak exits, 25% audience said they came out for Jonathan Majors’ Kang, while 54% said it’s part of a franchise they love and 41% because it’s a Marvel movie.