EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing from box office sources that Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qunatumania was zoomed in to $17-18 million last night in Showtimes previews that started at 3 p.m. That number, which could be higher or lower when Disney officially reports later this morning, is where Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was on Thursday night in 2017 at $17 million.
The previews for Marvel’s Thursday Night Harvest last year were Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($36 million), Thor: Love & Thunder ($29 million), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($28 million). ).
Industry forecasts put 4 days for Quantumania at $120 million, but Disney thinks it’s somewhere between $105 million and $110 million. Nonetheless, the threequel is sure to set an opening record for the Ant-Man franchise and the third-best Presidents Day opening ever, behind 2018’s Black Panther ($242.1 million) and 2016’s Deadpool ($152.1 million). . Ticket sales earlier this week were 15% behind Thor: Love and Thunder, which opened at $144.1 million.
According to Boxoffice Pulse data, Quantumania is surpassing the first two Ant-Man films in presales and seasons and is well positioned to be the best-selling February release since Black Panther 2018. According to The Boxoffice Company, which is responsible for Google, IMDb, Bing, TikTok, Apple and many others, the film lands in more than 3,500 locations with over 50,000 program times programmed throughout the weekend.
Critics were unusually cruel to this Marvel film, giving it a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is very close to Eternals’ 47%. Though Quantumania might prove Teflon in the reviews, the walk-up factor here is new MCU villain Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors and first introduced as a variant in Disney+/Marvel Studios’ Loki. The RT audience count is currently at 84%, which is higher than Thor: Love and Thunder (77%) and ahead of Ant-Man and the Wasp (80%) and close to Ant-Man (85%), albeit the latter Movies are better ratings at 87% and 83% respectively.
Guardians of the Galaxy Bd. 2 Thursday has regained 30% of its first day on Friday which was $56 million before opening at $146.5 million.
Thursday night’s Ant-Man 3 numbers come from industry sources, not Disney.
We stand corrected: There’s another big release this weekend, and it’s Briarcliff’s 100th Liam Neeson film Marlowe, which opened Wednesday at $2,281 to $550,000 and fell 62% yesterday to $210,000 in a running total equal to $760,000.
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