'Ant-Man and the Wasp' Projected for $85 to $95 Million Box Office Opening

Marvel Studios is poised for its third big win in 2018, as Ant-Man and the Wasp is now projected [...]

By Kofi Outlaw

Marvel Studios is poised for its third big win in 2018, as Ant-Man and the Wasp is now projected to earn between $85 - 95 million at the box office in its opening weekend of release.

Deadline has the early numbers, which point to the weekend following the July 4th holiday shaping up like this:

  1. Ant-Man and the Wasp ($85 - 95M)
  2. Jurassic World ($30M)
  3. Incredibles 2 ($26.5M)
  4. The First Purge ($16.6M)
  5. Sicario: Day of the Soldado ($9.7M)

For fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this puts Ant-Man and the Wasp in the (projected) striking distance of the opening weekend returns for Doctor Strange ($85M) and Guardians of the Galaxy ($94.3M).

That's a good sign for the consistency of the Marvel Studios brand, but will admittedly look weaker in comparison to the crazy unprecedented success of Marvel's two other 2018 releases, Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. Black Panther opened to $202M before hauling in $1.3M over all; Infinity War opened to $257M, before going on to earn over $2 Billion dollars in just eight weeks of release. Obviously, no one was expecting the Ant-Man franchise to math that pace (the first film just earned $519M), but this projected $85 - 95M opening for Ant-Man and the Wasp is a good sign for the franchise, as the first film opened to just $57M. The increase in returns doesn't just come as a result of this "high tide" of Marvel movie profits raising all boats in the franchise (so to speak) - it has to do with how the Ant-Man franchise has slowly but surely grown on fans (pun) since its release in summer 2015.

At that time, after Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier had blown the franchise wide open with possibility and genre-blending, Ant-Man was seen as something of generic and lackluster epilogue to MCU Phase 2 by many fans. However, after hype died down, the film gained a solid cult following as that harmless fun heist-comedy corner of the MCU. Ant-Man and the Wasp is coming at a time when that fun summer movie vibe is a welcome respite from both real world events, and the dark depressing turns of Avengers: Infinity War. The increased scope of shrinking/growing action, and a big, badass debut of not one but two versions of fan-fav The Wasp (Evangeline Lily and Michelle Pfieffer) have only enticed a wider circle of viewers to check this sequel out.

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Are you seeing Ant-Man and the Wasp on opening weekend? How did you feel about it? Let us know in the comments and check out all our continuing coverage of the film.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is now in theaters. Avengers: Infinity War is also playing in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.

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