It’s another Disney-led weekend as Ant-Man and the Wasp claims the weekend’s #1 spot. This marks the tenth time this year a film based on a Marvel comic character has topped the weekend box office!
Disney’s success this weekend also doesn’t end with just the #1 film at the box office as Incredibles 2 became the first animated title to ever top $500 million at the domestic box office.
As we enter the second half of the year, and the 27th weekend of 2018, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now claimed the #1 spot at the weekend box office nine times. The latest is this weekend’s release of Ant-Man and the Wasp, the 20th installment in the MCU, which debuted with an estimated $76 million over the three-day weekend, out-performing 2015’s Ant-Man by nearly $20 million.
Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s Friday gross accounted for 44.5% of its overall weekend gross, that’s the largest in MCU history, ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron (44.1%) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (43.39%). However, before that’s considered an issue, while Ultron only delivered a 2.4x multiplier, Homecoming delivered a 2.86x multiplier, the sixth best in the franchise, and the first Ant-Man enjoyed a healthy 3.15x multiplier. Ant-Man and the Wasp received a “A-” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, just a notch down from the “A” for Ant-Man, and 55% of the overall audience was male while 58% of the overall audience was over the age of 25. While the gender demographics are relatively similar to the first Ant-Man, the audience for the sequel did skew a bit older, as 48% of the overall audience for the first film was age 25 or older.
Looking ahead, should Ant-Man deliver on the average 2.75x multiplier for a film in the MCU we’re looking at a domestic performance around $209 million or so while a performance on the lower end would be closer to $180 million.