Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Superhero & Comic Disney PG-13 2h 4m Released Feb 17, 2023 Discussed 2023–2024
Opening weekend
$106.1M
4,345 theaters
Per-theater average
$24,421
opening weekend
Domestic total
$214.5M
2.0× its opening
Worldwide total
$476.1M
45% domestic
Production budget
$200.0M
2.4× worldwide
RT critics
46%
RT audience
81%
+35 vs critics
Metacritic
48
Where it turns up
Friday, February 17, 2023 Presidents Day weekend 2023
On the chart Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (opening): $106.1M
Expected 'It's saying about $90 million in 3 and about $110 in 4': with the RT-decay warning attached Actual: $106.1M 3-day
In the note
As promised, today is another step forward in the rebirth of the Theatrical sector. Because of the 2 year rule (and 2 years ago we were seeing the results of the Vaccine) green lights were happening all over town back then, and we’ll start seeing the fruits of that and the sector will get a more normal rhythm of releases now. Those weeks where the best new film does $2 million (if that) are behind us now, and we’ll see some consistency to the release schedule. Right up to the start of the Summer season, we’ll see a consistent flow of $20+ million openings, and we’ll have a couple of weeks where movies will do a multiple of that opening weekend. One of the factors we’ve missed at the box office since theaters started opening back up was the habitual moviegoer, the consumer who looked at the local multiplex offerings every weekend. They are the consumers who prop up the box office on iffy weekends, because they’ll catch up on films they missed in the first couple of weeks. Since the release schedule lacked a rhythm the last 2 years, they had other ‘go to’ forms of entertainment. I’m not sure we’ll quite get to the 2019 levels of box office performance this year, but this year's performance should be the bridge that gets us to full normal in 2024. Today’s rant is loosely based on a question I hear from a lot of you out there (especially since we started opening back up), ‘what about the mid-level movie?’ A mid-level movie from your point of view is budget, but from my point of view today it’s Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s the problem, the ‘binary’ nature of the Fresh/Rotten measurement isn’t accurate for films that have reviews at the mid-level. Most movies have some reviews that are either 4/4 stars or 1/4 stars, and some films are mostly 4/4 stars or 1/4 stars, so in those cases where it’s really good or really bad, that’s easy. But more often than not you’ve got a lot of reviews in their sample that are in that 2.5/4 stars or 3/5 star range, and how the critic designates that review (Fresh/Rotten) isn’t consistent, but can have a profound effect on the overall score. Unfortunately, Rotten Tomatoes has become a language for consumers, and an insanely powerful one. And as a key part of the information funnel once a consumer considers a purchase, it’s a go to site for a quick bite of critical opinion and (as you know) can clearly have a big effect on opening box office. Here’s two examples of the mid-level effect that I found interesting; M3gan and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody. If you look at those mid-level reviews both films received, for some reason a lot of those 2.5/4 star reviews were marked fresh by the critics on M3gan and rotten on Whitney. Just doing a back of the napkin calculation and making all those mid-level reviews ’neutral’ so they don’t figure into the score, M3gan goes from a powerfully positive 94% RT score to a more accurate score in the mid/high 70’s. Whitney goes from a box-office killing rating of 43% up to a rating in the low 60’s. What’s especially troubling about both examples here is that the audience score on M3gan is 78% and it’s 92% for Whitney, so it’s a two fer; the Rotten Tomatoes score didn’t paint an accurate picture of what the critics thought and it wasn’t predictive of real audience's enjoyment. Of course, once that audience rating populates, hopefully that’s a better metric for the consumer to use. But because opening weekends are so important in our sector, the critics score carries a lot of weight, and if it’s not predictive we (as an industry) probably need to do something about it. There’s a possibility we would need to get together with pitchforks and torches at their offices to get this done (or just start withholding ad dollars, but the pitchfork thing is way more cinematic), but I’d suggest a change in their measurement metrics. As I mentioned above, what’s wrong with critics being able to label their reviews as ’neutral’, in addition to the choices of fresh or rotten? And if they mark it ‘neutral’ (or something like that, maybe 🤷♂️),it doesn’t go into the fresh/rotten rating. They need to take those mid level reviews out of the sample, because when it’s a ‘mixed’ review, no one should make a critic choose a positive or negative label, it’s not fair to the critic or the film/TV show. I wouldn't be surprised if the critics welcome the ability to take a middle ground and not make it so binary. It's kind of like an auto critic reviewing a Honda Civic, it's not good or bad it's a Honda Civic. I'm not bashing Rotten Tomatoes here. It took an industry where local critics had a lot of influence (and you ended up with box office results that were all over the board) and made it more democratic; however in order to make it tip they had to also make it simple, so they went with binary. Since we're talking about art here, it seems like a small adjustment might serve the art better. Anyway, with the accuracy and efficacy normally associated with Rihanna's Super Bowl microphone, here are some thoughts on the weekend box office. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - This is really good today.
Friday, February 24, 2023 Fourth weekend of February 2023
On the chart Ant-Man: Quantumania (wk 2): $32.0M, -70%
Expected 'The drop looks like it's going to be 70% or so (and maybe more)... a 3 day in the mid/low 30s' Actual: $32.0M, -70%
In the note
The Theatrical sector continues to get back to normal; and if you didn’t hear it last weekend, not only was the box office up substantially from President’s weekend last year (+55%), but it was up from President’s weekend 2019 (+15%). And on a YTD basis, we’re up an astounding 45% from 2022 so far. This weekend should double 2022’s last weekend in February as well, but it probably will fall about 20% short of what 2019 did. So, it’s clearly a step forward and the steady cadence of releases should slowly build this back up to where we were pre shutdown. And once again, it’s the movies stupid. The next two years or so in the business are going to be crucial to our survival. And since next week voting opens for the Oscars, and a lot of you are Academy Members, I’d like to bring up some points that need to be talked about; and as usual I’m going to kick a couple of sacred cows and point out things that feel awkward right now, but will help the business (kinda like asking where the profit was in taking movies straight to a platform 2 years ago…). I’m not campaigning here, just putting out some ideas that could help this sector long term, think of this as a suggestion for activism through voting. Here’s the big idea, if we don’t course correct the way we vote for Oscars, the show is headed to Hulu. Instead of voting the way we’ve been doing lately, voting for friends' films (personally guilty) or voting for your company's film, consider votes that will be good for the business and good for the show (and of course to a deserving film/actor). Let’s start with Best Picture. Just in case you forgot, here are the last 10 Best Picture Winners: Coda, Nomadland, Parasite, Green Book, The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Spotlight, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Argo. Yeah, you can see how since Argo, it’s been movies that the consumers that go 4 or 5 times a year, and they are the core to our business, never saw. No wonder no one watches the show anymore, and as usual, Ben Affleck ruins everything. And here’s where my first inconvenient point comes in, all these movies play better at home on TV than on the big screen, and that’s where most of you are watching them. 12 Years a Slave beat Gravity, Spotlight beat The Revenant (and The Martian and Mad Max), Moonlight beat La La Land and Arrival and so on. It started with Z Channel in the late 70’s, then it was VHS tapes, then DVD’s and now the app. They tried to make it convenient for us, but unfortunately we’ve lost sight of how movies play differently on the big screen vs your flatscreen. So not only are we voting for films that play better on the small screen, we’re kinda giving the middle finger to the average moviegoing consumer, who isn’t really attracted to art house films we keep giving awards to. So, again, we wonder why the ratings keep leaking year after year. So, my first ask is when you vote for something as important as Best Picture, consider how much different films are when seen in a theater. As a business (and I’m talking about the entertainment business as a whole) the media beats us up all the time about being out of step with the normal American consumer (especially in the middle of the country). Imagine if we responded with ‘oh yeah? We’re not out of touch elitists, hold my Bellini (light on the peach juice and exactly 2 1/2 mini ice cubes, otherwise I’ll make you do it again)', and we give the Best Picture Oscar to Top Gun Maverick. I know most of you will push back on that idea because of that whole pesky ’success’ issue that seems to block your consideration, but a vote for a film people saw might reset how people view the Oscars (and they might actually view the Oscars in the future). And if you recalibrate why you would vote for a film, is there a better theatrical experience in this group of nominees? In addition, there is one aspect that we should also consider; to paraphrase Spielberg ‘it saved our ass’. But not only did it reset the box office, can’t we give some credit to the film for waiting 2 years to do it (and didn’t take ’the bag’ even though they were offered), to save our ass? Why aren’t we thinking more seriously about a film that had a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than all the other nominees? Do we really take something out of consideration because it had a higher gross than all the other nominees? I know some of you will have to put something you either worked on or are adjacent to 1st on your ballot, but as a nod to the future of the industry it might be a good idea to put Top Gun Maverick 2nd. And since we have this stupid ranked choice system (for Best Picture only) that none of us asked for or the membership approved (but was probably rammed through by the industrial awards complex), it would be a bonus if it won because of 2nd place votes. Speaking of the industrial awards complex (IAC), there are a couple of other categories where you can use your vote to push back about what’s going on with these awards. When Andrea Risenborough got nominated, the IAC freaked out and had to explain to their patrons why a bunch of actor tweets kicked their ass. What’s troubling is there’s a narrative out there that Andrea ’stole’ the nomination from Danielle Deadwyler in Till. Huh? It’s interesting how the IAC won’t turn on each other, but will instead point a finger at a film that didn’t employ them. This is a really tough category and all the nominees gave performances that belong here (including Deadwyler), but what if other movies just plain outspent Till in FYC? Is outspending stealing? It’s interesting to see a film like Blonde in this category with a 42% RT critics score and a 32% audience score, but spent a ton on FYC. Of course I’m not saying that Ana de Armas’s performance isn’t deserving, I’ve heard it’s exceptional, but it’s weird that the ‘honor among thieves’ effect took hold here and didn’t seem to point a finger at the film no one seems to like. I know some of you who get this email are on this gravy train (and I'm happy it built a pool for you at your 2nd vacation home), but for the rest of you it might be time to shut out all the FYC clutter and vote for a film that got here organically. Seriously, if we stopped all this FYC nonsense, and all those 50 page Hollywood Reporter and Variety ’supplements’ that arrive in the mail and go straight into the trash, how many trees could we save? So the activism point here is to vote for the nominee that got here with a performance and not a checkbook. So as you fill out your ballots, maybe do something good for the long term health of the business. Anyway, with the thought of how many moviegoers will go see either Cocaine Bear or Jesus Revolution and wander into the wrong theater, and then consider that mistake a fork in their life journey; here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Disney did something pretty miraculous last week.
Friday, March 3, 2023 First weekend of March 2023
On the chart Ant-Man: Quantumania (wk 3): $12.8M, -60%
Expected 'Down another 55 or 60% this weekend for a gross around $12 million' Actual: $12.8M, -60%
In the note
For now, assuming this doesn't fall to pieces tomorrow, figure it's in the low teens. Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania - The buzz continues to catch up here, it's down again a decent amount today, which makes that upward arc over opening weekend more amazing.
Friday, March 10, 2023 Oscar weekend 2023
Expected 'Down 40% for a weekend of about $8 million' Actual: $7.1M, -44%
In the note
For now, I’ll say it’s about 8 million for the weekend. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Looking a little more normal this weekend, down 40% for a weekend of about $8 million. Cocaine Bear - I thought this would hold a little better than it's holding.
Friday, May 5, 2023 First weekend of May 2023
In the note
So it’s another reason this came back down to the level the first film did gross wise. Just like last night’s preview gross, it’s shockingly (and almost to the dollar) exactly the same as Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania on its opening day.
Friday, February 16, 2024 Presidents Day weekend 2024
In the note
Even though we have a couple of new titles this weekend (that maybe took too much air out of the ballon on Wednesday, more on that below) we’re going to be waaaaay down from the same weekend last year, where Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania opened to well over $100 million, so the total box-office will be a fraction of what it was last year.