It would be easy to label the opening weekend for Ant-Man a failure. After all, it’s significantly lower than the openings for recent Marvel Studios movies and it’s a good $130 million less than the three-day opening Avengers: Age of Ultron had a few months ago. But let’s not be so hasty. Its opening numbers may not have blown anyone away, but Ant-Man’s box office arrival is textbook Marvel.

FilmWeekendPer Screen
1Ant-Man$58,040,000$15,052$58,040,000
2Minions$50,200,000 (-56.6)$11,645$216,692,000
3Trainwreck$30,200,000$9,563$30,200,000
4Inside Out$12,660,000 (-34.0)$3,573$306,363,000
5Jurassic World$11,400,000 (-37.2)
$3,657$611,174,000
6Terminator Genisys$5,400,000 (-61.0)$1,919$80,640,000
7Magic Mike XXL$4,500,000 (-53.0)$1,746$58,636,000
8The Gallows$4,005,000 (-59.2)$1,472$18,007,000
9Ted 2$2,700,000 (-52.3)$1,707$77,457,000
10Mr. Holmes$2,480,000$6,857$2,489,000

 

With an opening weekend of $58 million, Ant-Man had the second lowest opening weekend of any Marvel Studios movie, slightly edging out 2008’s The Incredible Hulk (which opened to $55 million). That may sound disappointing, but consider this: Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger both opened to $65 million before going on to have respectable, but not astonishing, final grosses. It was only with the sequels that they became box office juggernauts. This is not to say that Ant-Man 2 will be huge (or that it will even get made), but it does say that the level of interest in Ant-Man is similar to the initial interest in several of the company’s biggest heroes. Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are the outliers, the flukes. This is traditional Marvel. Unless it totally plummets next week, Ant-Man should be able to reach $150 million minimum, which is respectable enough. International grosses will keep in the black.

And beyond all of that, a movie about freakin’ Ant-Man topped the box office. That’s kind of impressive and totally insane in any capacity.

Ant-Man is going to grab all of the headlines and stir up the discussion, but Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer’s rom-com Trainwreck also opened this week, coming in third place with an impressive $30 million. In fact, it’s the second highest opening in Apatow’s career, coming in only a few hundred grand shy of Knocked Up. If word of mouth is strong (and it should be), expect Trainwreck to follow a similar trajectory and clear $100 million with ease. After all, there are theaters full of people who could use a break from the superheroes and an R-rated, female-driven comedy is just what they need.

Meanwhile, Minions fell 56 percent from its opening weekend, but its opening weekend was so big that it still made $50 million over the past three days. That may not be as strong as Universal was hoping, but it’s strong enough. The film is still on track to clear $300 million in about 10 days or so, although $400 million may be a slightly tougher battle than we previously predicted. In comparison, Inside Out has been performing less erratically, crossing $300 million at its own pace. Minions will certainly outgross it, but this feels like a showdown between hype and a movie that people actually, genuinely, truly like.

Oh, and Jurassic World should surpass The Avengers as the third highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office next weekend. Watch out, Titanic.

Oh, and Terminator Genisys may have a shot at $100 million after all, but it’s going to be close and no one is going to happy about it anyway.

Oh, and Mr. Holmes actually cracked the top 10 this weekend in limited release, scoring a little over $2 million. Never underestimate the power of Ian McKellen.

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