Weekend Wrap-Up: Ant-Man Remains one of the Smaller MCU Hits

July 10, 2018

Ant-Man and the Wasp

The two biggest releases of the weekend couldn’t quite match expectations, while the two big holdovers weren’t able compensate, resulting in a rare loss for 2018. Ant-Man and the Wasp still had an excellent opening with $75.81 million over the weekend, the seventh-best opening weekend of the year. The First Purge started out well on Wednesday, but slipped below the pace needed to match predictions by the weekend. That said, the overall weekend haul was still impressive at $188 million, which is 5.8% higher than last weekend. Granted, it is 8.7% lower than the same weekend last year, but Spider-Man: Homecoming opened with $117.03 million, so this is still a good result. Furthermore, 2018 remains ahead of 2017 by a substantial amount: $570 million, or 9.6%, at $6.47 billion to $5.90 billion. If the year ended with a lead of $570 million, we would be very happy.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is the 20th film in the MCU and it became the 20th film in the franchise to open in first place. It did so with $75.81 million, which is a 32.5% increase from the first Ant-Man’s opening weekend. If you chose to look at the negative side, there are only three other films in the MCU that had worse openings, all of which were in Phase One. The film’s reviews are 86% positive, compared to 82% positivereviews for its predecessor. However, Ant-Man and the Wasp was weaker with CinemaScore at an A minus compared to a straight A for the original Ant-Man. I still think the film has at 50/50 chance of getting to $200 million domestically and $600 million worldwide.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom beat expectations by a small margin at $28.63 million over the weekend for a total of $333.39 million after three weeks of release. It will come close to $400 million domestically, which is still impressive, but almost 40% lower than the previous installment in the franchise.

Incredibles 2 was right behind with $28.41 million over the weekend for a four-week total of $503.77 million. It became the third film released in 2018 to get to that milestone and the 12th film all-time. Here’s the amazing thing: Disney has released all three films to reach $500 million this year and eight of the twelve to reach that milestone all-time. No other studio has more than one $500 million hit.

The First Purge is the fourth film in The Purge franchise and coincidentally, it opened in fourth place over the weekend. It earned $17.37 million over three days for a five-day debut of $31.28 million. The film earned mixed reviews and a B minus from CinemaScore, so it likely won’t have great legs, but it is also a Wednesday opening, so that should help. We will know more this time next week.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado rounded out the top five with $7.62 million over the weekend for a two-week total $35.63 million. It is on pace for $50 million domestically, which is enough to generate another sequel in the franchise. That sequel might go direct-to-video, on the other hand.

- Weekend Box Office Chart

- Ant-Man and the Wasp Comparisons
- The First Purge Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Ant-Man and the Wasp, The First Purge, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Jurassic Park, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Purge, Sicario