Weekend projections: Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution exceed expectations as Ant-Man crashes

February 26, 2023

Cocaine Bear

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is headed for the worst 2nd-weekend decline for a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but will still cling on to top spot at the box office, according to the studios’ Sunday-morning projections. Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution feel more like the real winners of the weekend though, with both films turning in excellent performances.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



Although, as I mentioned on Friday, I thought our model was being a bit generous about Quantumania’s prospects in its second weekend, its actual performance is still disappointing. Here’s the chart of the biggest second-weekend drops for MCU films (click the image to see the full list):

Ant-Man does have the excuse that it’s coming off a holiday weekend, although Presidents’ Day is hardly known for its blockbuster status, and Black Panther had the best second weekend decline for an MCU movie coming off its Presidents’ Day weekend debut in 2018.

What really stands out on the list is that the seven worst second-weekend declines for MCU movies come from among their eight most recent releases. Since the pandemic, only Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has had a reasonably strong second weekend. The franchise looks increasingly to be kept aloft by superfans who show up in large numbers on opening weekend. That’s not a sustainable model for Disney in the long run, although earning $363.6 million in ten days is still pretty good business for Quantumania.

Cocaine Bear is enjoying an excellent weekend, meanwhile, with Universal projecting it’ll have $23.09 million in the bank by the end of the day today. That not only beats our Friday-morning prediction of $19.9 million, it also exceeds the prediction produced by the version of our model that uses only preview numbers, which came in at $22.6 million. That suggests it’s getting excellent word of mouth, or at least good enough—its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 75%, which isn’t stellar, but points towards a good number of moviegoers having a great time. It will easily have the 3rd-best opening of 2023 so far, behind Ant-Man and M3GAN.

Remarkably, Jesus Revolution will have the 4th-best opening of 2023 so far, with Lionsgate projecting it’ll pick up $15.525 million, including $2.36 million from special screenings on Wednesday. That beats our model’s pre-release prediction of a $7.8-million opening (and I hear our prediction was on the high end of expectations). It’s currently scoring a remarkable 99% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, which bodes well for an extended run.

Lionsgate and CinemaScore note that the film’s director, Jon Erwin is the first person to get four A+ CinemaScore grades since CinemaScore began publicly releasing results in 1986. He previously managed the feat with Woodlawn, I Can Only Imagine, and American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story, all of which he directed with his brother Andrew Erwin. He co-directed Jesus Revolution with Brent McCorkle.

The rest of the returning films in the top 10 are mostly performing in line with expectations, but the market as a whole is taking a hit thanks to that big drop by Quantumania. Overall, it looks as though we’ll fall short of the key $100-million market size this weekend. Fortunately, we have a relatively strong line-up of new releases over the next month or so, which should help maintain (and hopefully grow) the total box office.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Cocaine Bear, Jesus Revolution, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jon Erwin, Andrew Erwin, Brent McCorkle