Image via Marvel
The second weekend witnessed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania remain at the top of the American box office, but it also saw the biggest decrease of any MCU movie.
The predicted $32.2 million gross for Quantumania was enough to surpass the $23.1 million gross for the Elizabeth Banks-directed film Cocaine Bear during its first weekend. Yet for Scott Lang & Co., the good news stops there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the most recent installment of the Ant-Man trilogy experienced a 69.7% fall in domestic box office receipts following a $105 million debut, breaking the previous record of 67.8% held by Black Widow in 2021. Because to the uncertainty surrounding cinema releases during the height of the pandemic, the Scarlett Johansson-starring movie also debuted on Disney+ at the same time.
Quantumania also owns the unfortunate record for any superhero movie’s largest second-weekend slump. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice from DC no longer holds the ignoble distinction, which was formerly held by it with 69.1 percent.
The collapse of Quantumania raises the possibility of another troubling pattern in MCU movies. Thor: Love and Thunder, the last movie to be released in theaters, struggled to a 67.7 percent failure rate in its second weekend.
“As second weekend drops go, anything in the 70 percent realm is pretty significant,” senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Variety. “But movies that open with over $100 million are generally front-loaded. In some cases, ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ comes into play.”