At the domestic box office, the Marvel Studios movie had the best start of the three “Ant-Man” movies, and it was also one of the best showings ever for Presidents Day. Even though the movie did not do well in China, the worldwide start is $240 million.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: The Sting of Quantum Mania Is Working.
The third film in Marvel Studios and Disney’s stand-alone superhero series is set to have a franchise-best domestic opening of $120 million on Presidents Day, including $105.5 million for the three days. It will be the first studio event film of 2023.
Overseas, the Marvel movie made $121.3 million, giving it a total of $241.3 million so far. One disappointing place was China, where the movie only made $19.2 million, which was much less than the previous two movies. It’s the first Marvel or Disney movie to come out on the same day in the Middle Kingdom since Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
There are worries that the brand may have lost its luster or that people don’t want to see Hollywood superhero movies as much as they used to (DC’s upcoming Shazam! Fury of the Gods will be a big test).
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Even though it got bad reviews and a B CinemaScore from audiences, Ant-Man 3 opened in North America 37 percent ahead of the last film, which was an impressive number.
The first Ant-Man made $57.2 million in its first three days in the U.S., which was the lowest start of any MCU movie. It went on to make $519.3 million worldwide. Three years later, the second movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp opened in North America with $75.8 million and ended up making $622.7 million worldwide. The two movies made $6 million and $12 million from their previews, respectively.
Director Peyton Reed brings back actors Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly for the third movie in the series. Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Bill Murray, Katy O’Brian, William Jackson Harper, James Cutler, and David Dastmalchian are also in the cast.
One problem for Quantum Mania is that Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer is currently at 48 percent, which is the second-worst of any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Eternals (47 percent) and notably lower than the Tomatometer rankings for 2012’s Ant-Man (83 percent) and 2015’s Ant-Man and the Wasp (86 percent) (87 percent). In general, superhero stories that focus on men are less affected by bad reviews than other types of stories.
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The audience is also less excited, or at least the people CinemaScore talked to about this. The movie got a B CinemaScore, while the first Ant-Man got an A and the second one got an A-. The score from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes is about the same as the score for the first two.
Black Panther still has the most money made over Presidents Day weekend, with a total of $242,2 million. This is followed by Deadpool with $152,2 million and Fifty Shades of Grey with $93 million when prices are not taken into account.
Avatar: The Way of Water stayed at No. 2 with $6.1 million domestically and passed Titanic at the global box office to become the No. 3 movie of all time, not taking inflation into account.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which is now in its second weekend, came in third with an estimated $6.3 million and $5.4 million over the four days. The movie’s sales dropped by less than 35 percent after being shown in 1,538 more theaters, for a total of 3,034. The Channing Tatum movie made another $6.3 million overseas, bringing its total worldwide earnings to nearly $39 million as of Monday.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, a family film that has been popular for a long time, came in at number four on the four-day Presidents Day chart with $7.4 million. It has now made over $420 million around the world. Last on the list was Knock at the Cabin, which made $4.5 million over the four days.
Ant-Man 3 may have been the only new major studio release over the holiday weekend, but Briarcliff and Open Road also used the time to release the Liam Neeson crime thriller Marlowe, which is only expected to make $2.3 million in its first four days, $1.9 million of which will come from the first three days.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a low-budget British slasher from director Rhys Frake-Waterfield that went viral last year for its idea of beating up children, opened in 1,700 U.S. theaters on Wednesday and Thursday to a strong $894,000 in ticket sales for the two days. The movie started to lose steam over the weekend when it was cut down to 475 locations, but it will still end up with a nice $1.5 million to $1.6 million domestic total on Monday.
