Reviews are in for Quantumania and they’re not good. But for Marvel, the hope is that the first film in Phase 5 can live off of those early die-hard fans and an international surge of enthusiasm.
We all know that Marvel movies are now notoriously frontloaded. Fans of the superhero universe seem to flock to theaters in a way that no other franchise can produce. But then the steep fall-off begins for anything not called “No Way Home.” Now, Antman is coming out with a ridiculously high projection for a February weekend… but can it sustain these types of numbers? And can it do so with really bad reviews coming in? Or will this be a quick splash at the box office followed with another sign of diminishing interest from general audiences?
There’s no way to know for sure just yet but one thing that doesn’t require much speculation is just how much Marvel is depending on the international box office for this one than in the past. Quantumania may look more like a Transformers film in terms of box office percentages domestic v global when all is said and done. Though the film is not on track to top $100m for the three-day weekend domestically, the global story is far different.
As is standard, there are no other frosh wide releases from rival studios. With the Peyton Reed-directed threequel kicking off overseas Wednesday, it’s looking like around $160M for a global start of $280M (that includes $35M-$55M from China). Tracking remains slightly unpredictable for big films even as the pandemic has eased, but with Jonathan Majors’ new mega-MCU villain Kang the Conqueror making his big-screen debut after his variant’s introduction in the Marvel/Disney+ series Loki, that could create a stampede of walk-up business this coming weekend.
Currently, domestic advance ticket sales for Ant-Man 3 is tracking 15% behind Thor: Love and Thunder, which opened to $144.1M over three days. Natch, Disney has all the Imax (400 auditoriums), PLF (about 900), Dbox (280) and 3D screens (2,500).
— Anthony D’Alessandro, Deadline
One issue for Quantumania is that it is only tracking for a 25% increase over the last Antman movie. While that might seem good — and is being presented as such by the mainstream press — it really isn’t. Once you consider that ticket prices have gone up more than 25% since the last film (crazy, I know), you realize that Quantumania is continuing a trend with Marvel to have less butts in seats than the prior film. That’s declining cultural influence even if it’s masked by inflationary numbers that help films continuously “break records”.
It’s just too bad those records are a bit vapid.
No hate here though for the film. I’ll be going to see it tonight, so watch for the review tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see how it performs over the three-day and four-day, as well as how it does in China. Maybe ants are more popular than panthers in the Middle Kingdom?
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