The Marvel Cinematic Universe has dominated the box office and Ant-Man and the Wasp becomes the tenth time this year a Marvel film has won the weekend box office.
The sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man and the 20th installment of the MCU brought in $76 million. That is quite an increase from the $57.2 million opening of the original film. It is looking like this film has potential to break $200 million domestically but I’m thinking it will finish around $190 million domestically.
The film brought in $85 million internationally and had a nice worldwide opening of $161 million. This is the ninth time this year that the MCU has claimed the top spot at the box office.
Incredibles 2 remained in second place with $29 million. It becomes the first animated film in history to cross $500 million domestically, which obviously makes it the highest grossing animated film of all-time. It is close to passing Beauty and the Beast to become the 11th highest grossing domestic release of all-time.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom dropped two spots to third place with $28.6 million. The film saw a 53 percent drop during its third weekend and also crossed $330 million domestically. The film crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, becoming the 35th film to achieve this.
The First Purge opened in fourth place after opening on Wednesday and finished with $17.1 million over the three-day weekend and finished with a $31 million opening over the five-day weekend. This is the lowest opening of The Purge franchise but all of the films have had successful domestic runs and I expect this one to at least cross $50 million domestically.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado rounds out the top five with $7.3 million. The film took a 62 percent drop during its second weekend and is approaching $40 million domestically.
Ocean’s 8 is approaching $130 million domestically while Deadpool 2 is approaching $315 million domestically. Solo: A Star Wars Story finally crossed $210 million while it looks like Avengers: Infinity War might not reach $680 million domestically.
Tag ($3.1 million) and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? ($2.6 million) round out the rest of the top ten.
It will be close but I think Ant-Man has a good chance of repeating as box office champion as it faces competition from two new wide releases including the action thriller Skyscraper, starring Dwayne Johnson.
Weekend Gross by Distributor:
Disney: $106.9 million (+57.6 percent)
Universal: $45.9 million (-14.3 percent)
Warner Bros.: $8.4 million (-5.3 percent)
Sony Pictures: $7.9 million (-12.5 percent)
Lionsgate: $6.6 million (-9.1 percent)
Focus Features: $2.6 million (+0.3 percent)
20th Century Fox: $1.7 million (-4.3 percent)
A24: $1.1 million (-1.3 percent)
Next week’s openings: Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Skyscraper