It’s become more and more difficult to truly project just how much money a film will make at the box office. Most of the 2020 holdovers were the only ones to beat early projects going into last year with Top Gun: Maverick and Minions: Rise of Gru. Still, Marvel films remained reliable box office performers even as they hit a sophomore slump, not too surprising with a franchise event like Avengers: Endgame that would normally wrap up any other franchise.
Still, there are some early projects coming in on how their first Phase 5 entry may perform at the box office. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is only a few more weeks away for hitting theaters and early projects seem to have the film potentially earning between $96M to $131M in its opening weekend. with their usual performance of a strong drop in its second weekend, there’s a chance the film could end between $249M to $347M in its domestic run.
With good word-of-mouth, the film may become the first $100M+ opener for the year and that’s in a strong February market. The film has the advantage of no real competition until Shazam: Fury of the Gods in March though Creed 3 has the potential to take the top spot in the domestic market. There’s also the Dungeons & Dragons film hitting theaters in late March.
It should be noted for those ready to call this a potential bust for Marvel Studios, the film would still have the biggest domestic gross for any part of the Ant-Man franchise if it hits the lower end of the projections. Ant-Man managed to pull in $180M while its sequel had a slight boost to $216M. Plus, the last entry was five years ago and the main antagonist of the current Multiverse Saga might make it a “don’t miss” for fans that will check out the film early on.
Also, its opening may double the initial opening weekend at the domestic box office, which was around $57M. It’s sequel opened to $75M, which makes this the potential biggest opener for the franchise. It’ll also have the biggest budget for an Ant-Man entry, which means the expectations are higher. The February release also opens up some questions on how it’ll perform but Marvel could still prove to be a reliable performer at the box office going into its fifth phase.
Source: Box Office Pro
