Paul Rudd's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania appears to have kicked off Phase 5 with a financial bang, but time will tell how it holds. Critics and audiences have been divided on Kang the Conqueror's true introduction, but given how much the film made over its first four days, there's little reason for Disney or Kevin Feige to worry.
The first two Ant-Man films carried relatively modest price tags of about $130 million each. However, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has a significantly higher tag of $200 million. This means the film needs to clear at least $600 million worldwide after production and marketing costs.
There's reason to believe Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will hit that number and then some. Per Deadline, director Reed's third MCU go-round netted $357 million worldwide after its first four days on screens, including Monday's U.S. Presidents' Day holiday. This is noteworthy, considering $118 million came from domestic screens, whereas Ant-Man only opened with $57.2 million in 2015, and Ant-Man and the Wasp opened with $75.8 million in 2018.
Even if focusing on the domestic haul, that $600 million worldwide looks doable. In the states, the first film tripled its domestic opening weekend and then some by the time it left theaters. Ant-Man and the Wasp fell a bit short of that, but Ant-Man 3 is a different movie from Ant-Man and the Wasp. That second film (not unlike the first) was notably restrained in comparison to its MCU brethren. However, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has a larger scope than those first two entries combined. And that's precisely how it's being marketed.
Ant-Man 3 feels just as much like Phase 5 Kickoff: The Movie as it does Ant-Man 3, and while that does arguably make the third installment the weakest of the trilogy, it's also an event film. Given that, and the fact that the biggest movie debuting its sophomore weekend is Cocaine Bear, there's plenty of reason to expect Quantumania to domestically triple its three-day debut of $104 million, if not the four-day $118 million.
Will Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania beat the odds of its small-sized hero becoming a $1 billion worldwide big hit? Probably not, but the safe money's on a $650-$700 million worldwide tally once all the screens go black. Furthermore, Jonathan Majors' Kang has a multi-billion dollar MCU future, so it's good the actor only almost walked out of his first Marvel audition.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters.
Source: Deadline