Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania still had some momentum leaving its first week with a strong Monday holiday, but quickly slipped throughout the week to Marvel’s second-worst Thursday at 3.7M only beating Thor: The Dark World. Now, the second weekend has finally started and while most expected it to move around 60% to 65%, we’re about to face a much harsher weekend for the Marvel Studios latest than expected.
The film has been overshadowed by Cocaine Bear going into its Friday, which pulled in a strong $8.65M including Thursday previews against Ant-Man 3 that pulled in $8.3M (a harsh 82% drop which is higher than that of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). Of course, it technically is behind Quantumania but gets that premiere Thursday boost. Still, the film is expected to open above $20M at this rate and is looking to showcase the staying power for some bloody good action in theaters.
Right behind it is Jesus Revolution which has a very strong audience performance and is also expected to open strongly thanks to its faith-based core audience. Both are still not expected to dethrone Ant-Man this weekend but the film is set to potentially drop between 67% to 72%. Right now, everyone is losing a bit of faith and believes the drop might be on the harsher end, which would make it the biggest drop for any Marvel Studios film and potentially even superhero films in general.
So, what exactly is going on? The Friday drop was a harsh 82% and now has the third lowest second Friday, as it still is holding better than Eternals and Black Widow, but it also had a bigger opening than both. Right now, the question is if it’ll still manage 30M or surprise with 35M after all after that sharp drop. The lowest holder of the second-weekend drop is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at 69.1%, which adds to the weight if this film will even stick around below 70%. So far, the only blockbuster that had this high of a drop was the last Harry Potter film at 72%.
It’s hard to say but word-of-mouth isn’t really pushing it as strongly as it could. There’s a chance that most that weren’t fully sold on the film are just going to wait for the Disney+ release and that is why there’s no rush to see it in theaters, as with 3 1/2 PostTrack rating it wasn’t deemed terrible just didn’t sell audiences on it being a must-watch (mixed word-of-mouth doesn’t always translate to terrible film). We’ll have to see where it truly lands this weekend as it’s expected to have a better Saturday but at best it might rival Thor: Love and Thunder‘s weekend drop which was 67.7%.
Source: Twitter, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, The Numbers
