Although theatrical box office is recovering from the worst of its pandemic losses, the latest blockbuster superhero sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is suffering a big drop in its second weekend, with just $30+ million domestic. The third entry in this MCU franchise is clocking a 70+% decline off its opening North American bow, and a whopping 80+% Friday-to-Friday cliff-dive, for the all-time worst shrinkage for Marvel Studios.
Official poster for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will likely end the weekend with a grand total of around $330+ million in global receipts. And make no mistake, it’s sophomore weekend is still good enough for first place at the box office for the frame.
A brutal (relatively, for Marvel at least) B grade from audiences via Cinemascore leaves Quantumania tied with Eternals as the worst-received MCU film of the studio’s 31 theatrical releases to date. The first Thor movie received a B+ Cinemascore, and all of the rest of the MCU received A-, A, or A+ grades.
The arrival of Universal’s Cocaine Bear into the marketplace is also siphoning off a significant portion of the younger audience this weekend. That film from director Elizabeth Banks is putting up strong numbers, with an opening of $20+ million, clearly at the expense of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
It’s also worth noting Avatar: The Way of Water continues to hold tight in the top four and might even break $5 million domestic for the weekend. This is a remarkable set of statistics, even if most people are bored by now of updates about how well The Way of Water is holding and setting records. Ten weeks after opening, here it still sits in the weekend’s highest earners, still grossing millions of dollars and topping $2.255 billion.
But it’s not a good sign when week 10 of a Christmas blockbuster and a modestly budgeted R-rated violent comedy about a bear on drugs are stealing viewers from the latest big-budget Marvel superhero tentpole on just its second weekend of release. That this film is a major foundational moment for the upcoming Avengers franchise two-part story arc in 2025’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and 2026’s Avengers: Secret Wars makes it more troubling.
All of the signs seemed to point to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania scoring big with audiences. It’s a Marvel sequel with a relatively open field to dominate, releasing when audiences are returning to the marketplace again and with a major new villain who seems popular with viewers. Additionally and as I discussed in my review, Quantumania is also the most “Marvel” in scope, spectacle, and tone of the Ant-Man movies so far, which I thought would translate into even higher turnout and better reception for this chapter of the series.
Instead, these significant shifts for the series seem to have displeased a lot of fans of the previous two films precisely because it changed too much of what they liked best about the Ant-Man and Wasp franchise. The fact Kang is a major new villain who threatens the entire MCU — and who will require the mighty Avengers to stop him — has also caused some fans and critics to complain about how the villain fares against “only” Ant-Man, Wasp, and their team.
There’s no arguing the film is definitely a shift in many ways from the approach of previous Ant-Man and Wasp entries. It simultaneously “goes bigger” by “going even smaller,” which sounds clever and funny except what it really does is removes the largely real-life obstacles and more personal localized stakes of the first two films, and replaces them with super-human threats to the universe in an expansive fantastical world of aliens and sci-fi magic, where the human emotions are all that remains of the recognizable world and personal stakes audiences have come to expect and appreciate most in the series.
That said, while I recognize the reasons it now faces mixed reactions and box office underperformance and I see the factual reality of how people responded and what it means for the film’s box office, I still also disagree with those negative reactions.
I think the series was always setting up the Quantum Realm as the inevitable eventual bigger reveal, so this is the natural progression for the stories. And there are limits to how much you can really do to “wow” audiences a third time with “this typically small thing now looks gigantic next to this tiny superhero” or “this typically giant thing now looks tiny in the hands of this giant superhero” before people want you to do the unexpected and deliver something wilder and unique.
And I think Peyton Reed delivered the goods, particularly exploring the weirdness of this strange new land and all of the alien creatures who live there, and introducing Kang to the big screen. The film also gives the ensemble lots to do, particularly Michelle Pfeiffer as the stealth main character of the story.
My one main complaint is that supposed co-lead Paul Rudd winds up with a fairly simple “rescue my daughter” arc that’s fine as far as that goes and sets up enough action beats to satisfy that need for his character, yet feels repetitive and with too little to really do while the rest of the characters busy themselves with the main story and lots of wonderful reveals.
Likewise, co-lead Evangeline Lilly serves primarily as sidekick and superhero bodyguard to her parents for most of the film, but she gets plenty out of that since she’s in so much of the primary storyline and enjoys plenty of fun family banter with Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas.
Kathryn Newton as Rudd’s daughter has an activist-minded arc as well as a sidekick role, and is responsible for setting events in motion in the first place, so these elements plus her family interactions with Rudd and friendship/scientific relationship with Douglas and Lilly all plays nicely and makes her character feel more fleshed out even than Rudd’s this time around.
No matter what I think of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, however, this weekend’s box office makes it clear audiences are lukewarm on the picture and its longterm prospects will take a significant hit after its lowest-end opening and record-setting week-to-week drop.
We need to see final international box office figures, but it’s doubtful any holds overseas will be good enough to make up for its softer bow and quick domestic drops. I now think it’ll have to hope it recovers a bit on weekend #3 and manages to play on par with 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp for $600+ million. The bottom line is, it looks like Marvel’s 2023 is off to a bumpier start than anyone expected.
I’ll be back soon with more updates on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, as well as Avatar: The Way of Water’s box office grand totals and more film news and reviews. So be sure to check back again soon, dear readers, and if you venture to theaters this weekend, please be sure to mask up and help protect other people around you who might be at higher risk of severe illness or death from Covid, flu, and other illnesses.
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