‘Ant-Man And The Wasp’ Scores A Giant-Sized Opening Weekend

Perhaps one of the most underrated aspects of Marvel Studios’ dominance at the box office is their uncanny ability to have sequels outperform the previous films. Unless it’s a rare exception, common sense would dictate that a sequel will do less than its predecessor. But when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’re almost guaranteed a higher opening weekend with each subsequent film.

So, it’s no surprise that this weekend’s first weekend total for “Ant-Man and the Wasp” performed far better than the first “Ant-Man” back in 2015. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” scored a #1 opening weekend with an estimated $76 million, which is about 33% improvement over the original’s $57.2 million a few years ago.

However, even with the huge leap from the first film, you can’t help but be a little underwhelmed with the film’s performance this weekend. Early predictions had “Ant-Man and the Wasp” earning anywhere from $75 million to close to $100 million. Sure, $76 is slightly more than the lowest predictions, but early buzz had the film flirting with $100 million. Oh well, Disney can’t be too displeased, as they continued their dominance with a C-rate character that just a few years ago, no one would have predicted would have one film, let alone a franchise.

The other major film to open this weekend was the fourth film in the ‘Purge’ series, “The First Purge.” Carrying with it a political theme, and an opening on Wednesday (July 4), the film still had an impressive weekend at #4 with just over $17 million, and a domestic total after 5 days of just over $31 million. With an estimated production budget of only $13 million, there’s no way that Blumhouse could be less than ecstatic with these numbers.

The major holdovers from last weekend, “Incredibles 2” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,“ finished at #2 and #3 respectively. Switching positions from last weekend, Disney’s superhero animated film beat the dinosaurs with a weekend of $29 million, bringing its incredible domestic total to $504 million. ‘Fallen Kingdom’ didn’t fall too far behind ‘Incredibles,’ with a respectable $28.6 million and a domestic total of $333 million. “Incredibles 2” is showing remarkable legs, as the animated film continues to break records for Disney and Pixar.

Last weekend’s big debut films didn’t fare very well in their second weekends, however. At #5, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” earned $7.3 million, which was a steep -61.6% drop from its opening. While the film will eclipse the domestic total of the first “Sicario,” this weekend-to-weekend drop isn’t what Sony was hoping for, as they lay the groundwork for a clear plan for a franchise.

Last week’s shocker, “Uncle Drew,” also saw a pretty steep drop from its opening weekend, with a total of $6.6 million, which is good for a #6 showing. The family-friendly comedy dropped -56.5% in its second weekend, showing that this film probably doesn’t have the legs we were anticipating.

However, as has been the case this summer, documentaries are vastly overperforming, as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” added almost 300 theaters and moved up a spot to #9, with a weekend total of $2.6 million. The Mister Rogers doc continues to impress with a domestic total of $12.4 million in less than 1000 screens. The Whitney Houston doc “Whitney” opened this weekend on 452 screens, just missing the top 10 with a total of $1.25 million.

Finishing virtually tied at just over $717K a piece is the debut of “Sorry to Bother You,” which has been a festival standout in 2018 and scored an impressive per-theater-average of $44,831. Last weekend’s per-theater-average king, “Three Identical Strangers” also held very well as the doc added 46 screens and had an impressive average of $14,059. We’ll see if both films can continue this momentum as they opened wider in the coming weeks.

Here’s the full top 10 for July 6 to July 8:

1. Ant-Man and the Wasp — $76M (Debut)
2. Incredibles 2 — $29M ($504M Overall)
3. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — $28.6M ($333M)
4. The First Purge — $17M ($31M)
5. Sicario: Day of the Soldado —$7.3M ($35.3)
6. Uncle Drew — $6.6M ($29.9M)
7. Ocean’s 8 — $5.3M ($126.8M)
8. Tag — $3.1M ($48M)
9. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? — $2.6M ($12.4)
10. Deadpool 2 — $1.7M ($314M)