ANT-MAN (Marvel/Disney) appears to be opening at the lower end of the Marvel universe. According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the latest superhero epic had a $23.4M Friday (which includes $6.4 from Thursday night). That puts it modestly below the $25.5M opening day for the original Thor and $25.7M for the first Captain America, as well of course behind their sequels and the Iron Man, Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy blockbusters. It remains to be seen whether the more comic Ant-Man will play as a family movie, which could give it a stronger Saturday than the superhero norm (Thor and Captain America fell 8% and 15% on their 2d days), but at the moment it appears to be heading toward a $60M weekend or perhaps (especially on Monday when final numbers are released) a bit less. None of this, of course, means that Ant-Man will be anything other than a huge profit center for Marvel, especially since its production costs were relatively moderate at $130M, and the studio knew from the start that it was stretching its mega-franchise into a different tone with this one. But Marvel is Marvel, so anything less than utter world domination plays as a slight disappointment.
TRAINWRECK (Universal), on the other hand, is performing well above expectations, confirming Amy Schumer’s place at the zenith of the current pop culture zeitgeist. Weekend predictions are shaky because female-intensive hits tend to be frontloaded, but its $11.3M Friday (including $1.8M from Thursday night) is above the $9.8M opening day for Knocked Up, the $7.8M for Bridesmaids and the $10.3M for Spy, suggesting a $30M+ weekend that will almost equal its $35M production budget (although not its marketing costs). Word of mouth should be strong, and with Vacation as the only major comedy opening in the next few weeks, Trainwreck could crash its way to a $100M total in the US or more.
The holdovers were naturally led by MINIONS (Illumination/Universal), although the animated spin-off took a very heavy hit for its genre, down 68% from its first Friday to $14.5M (by comparison, Inside Out dropped 56% on its parallel day). It may not reach $50M for the weekend, and matching the $368.1M US total of Despicable Me 2 looks like a stretch (that movie opened on a Wednesday, so day-by-day comparisons don’t really work). Once again, Minions will still be gigantically profitable, just perhaps not as much as last week’s opening suggested.
THE GALLOWS (Blumhouse/Warners) sank like a cheap horror movie stone, down 71% from last Friday to $1.3M, and unlikely to cross $4M for the weekend. (There aren’t even any early numbers available for last week’s other opening, the disastrous SELF/LESS.)
Among the long runners, JURASSIC WORLD (Legendary/Universal) and INSIDE OUT (Pixar/Disney) remain in lockstep, both with $3.5M Fridays and likely $12M weekends, which will put Jurassic just a week or so away from topping The Avengers‘s $623.4M US total for the 3rd highest ever, and Inside Out within reach of Finding Nemo‘s $339.7M status as its studio’s #2 movie in the US.
TERMINATOR: GENISYS (Skydance/Paramount) continued its collapse, down 60% from last Friday to $1.6M and a likely $5.5M weekend that will put it far short of $100M in the US, with all the pressure on its international earnings. MAGIC MIKE XXL (Warners) fell 53% from last Friday to $1.7M and should have a $5M weekend that gives it a US total near $60M.
MR. HOLMES (Miramax/Roadside) had a quasi-wide opening at 363 theatres, and should have an OK $6500 per-theatre average for the weekend. Woody Allen’s IRRATIONAL MAN (Sony Classics) opened at 5 theatres, and is heading for a brisk $35K weekend average, better than the $24K average for Magic In the Moonlight (although that opened at 17), but not remotely close to the $102K average Blue Jasmine had at 6 or even the $72K average for To Rome With Love at 5. Irrational isn’t fated to be one of the filmmaker’s mainstream hits, but he’s already in pre-production on his 2016 release, so his assembly line keeps chugging along.
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