On February 17, Marvel Studios' first sci-fi blockbuster in the fifth phase of the fifth phase "Ant-Man 3" (full name "Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantum Frenzy") met with audiences around the world.
This is also the third month, following "Black Panther 2", another Marvel superhero blockbuster opened in the world.
So, what about the film's North American and global box office?
Let's just say that the long-lost door is finally here, and the last film that ignited the passion of fans was back to "Avatar 2" in the Christmas schedule.
In the 7th week of 2023, including the President's Day small schedule, the North American box office ranking from February 17 to 20 was freshly released, and with the blessing of "Ant-Man 3" and the small schedule, the North American market slammed $159 million, directly soaring 300% from the 6th week.
A total of two new films broke into the top ten of the list, one is Liam Neeson's thriller "Marlowe", and the other is "Ant-Man 3", which will be detailed in this article.
In terms of old films, James Cameron continued to stage left-handed fighting scenes, and "Avatar 2" narrowly defeated "Titanic" at the global box office, returning to the third place in the global film history.
The two super-blockbusters grossed $2,243.3 million and $2,242.8 million respectively.
Universal Pictures' animated sequel "Puss in Boots 2" returned to the third place on the chart, grossing $5.3 million over the weekend and $6.97 million as of Monday.
The animated film set in the "Shrek" universe was released in theaters in December, and has already earned $167 million at the North American box office, and has achieved a long-term sale, with a global box office of more than $400 million.
Week 6 box office champion film "Magic Mac 3: The Last Dance" fell to fourth place, grossing just $6.3 million over the weekend.
The comedy, starring Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek, grossed just $18.89 million in two weeks, and Warner Bros. produced the exclusive rights to HBO Max, increasing its cost to $60 million and expecting a loss of $40 million.
The Shyamalan psychological thriller "Visit the Cabin" earned $4.49 million in 2,601 theaters, and the cumulative box office in North America has reached $30.96 million.
Head-to-head with "Ant-Man 3" is Liam Neeson's latest film "Marlowe", which barely squeezed into the top 10, but the box office performance was very dismal, with a total box office of only $3.02 million in the first weekend, ranking eighth.
The film is adapted from Benjamin Black's novel "Black-Eyed Blonde" starring Marlowee, which tells the story of a blonde beautiful customer in Bay City in the 1930s who hopes that Marlowe will help her find her missing ex-boyfriend.
Liam Neeson left the action film to star in this suspense thriller and was not recognized by the audience, with a 24% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a popcorn index of 39%, marking the worst start for the action superstar in a period of silence.
"Ant-Man 3" opened in North America, far exceeding expectations, the first weekend three days plus President's Day, the box office in four days hit 118 million US dollars, won the North American box office champion in the 7th week without suspense, becoming the first new film to exceed 100 million US dollars in 2023.
And set the highest box office record in the opening weekend of the series' trilogy, surpassing the $57 million opening of the first "Ant-Man" in 2015 and the $76 million opening of the sequel "Ant-Man and the Wasp" in 2018.
IMAX CEO Richie Galfonte said that "Ant-Man 3" is the first Hollywood blockbuster to be released in 2023, noting that $24 million came from the company's IMAX premium screen.
"Ant-Man 3" opened simultaneously in 43 overseas countries and regions, earning 239 million US dollars, and the global box office was released in the first week, with a total of 357 million US dollars.
The overseas market is not better than the first two, mainly because the film did not rise at the Chinese mainland box office, but this does not prevent the fact that the film makes money.
The first two "Ant-Man", the global box office was 519 million US dollars and 622 million US dollars, respectively, now, the global box office of "Ant-Man 3" exploded 357 million US dollars in the first week, and the total global box office is expected to be more than 900 million US dollars, the best in the series.
It is learned that the budget cost of the film is 150 million US dollars, and the global box office can be profitable as long as it reaches 450 million US dollars, and if the final box office is fixed at more than 900 million US dollars, then Marvel Studios will definitely make another profit.
In this way, the global influence of Marvel movies can be seen, and its film culture roots have spread all over the world, if "The Wandering Earth 2" can have such a strong distribution capacity, the box office will make 1.5 billion US dollars.
After the large-scale release of "Ant-Man 3", the global reputation was fully released:
IMDB scored 6.6 points from more than 43,000 viewers; CinemaScore received a "B" grade recommendation in the survey; The Douban score dropped from 6.4 to 6.1;
On the MetaCritic (MTC) media platform, 60 media systematically evaluated and rated "Ant-Man 3", with a comprehensive score index of 48 points, orange.
Among them, 17 gave positive reviews, 34 gave equal points, and 9 media directly gave bad reviews, which is a failing film in terms of media reputation;
On the Rotten Tomatoes film critics platform, 308 professional film critics rated "Ant-Man 3", and the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes was only 47%, which was tied with "Eternals" as the worst film in Marvel's word-of-mouth. More than 5,000 viewers rated the popcorn index with 84%.
From the perspective of word of mouth, the global box office endurance of "Ant-Man 3" will definitely be much lower than that of "Avatar 2", but the skinny camel is larger than the horse, and the influence of this movie is too great.
The story of the film takes place after "Avengers 4: Endgame", Paul Luther's "Ant-Man" Scott Lang and Evangeline Lilly's "Wasp" Hope Van Dane, who saved the world and became a legendary hero and is enjoying a semi-retired life.
Once, Scott's daughter Cathy had an accident playing with the quantum traversing machine, straying them into the quantum realm again, where they met the strongest villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - Kang the Conqueror.
In addition to returning to the real world at the beginning and end of the movie, the rest of the scenes take place in the quantum realm, so 80% of the special effects scenes in the whole film are relatively dark, and the first villain Darren reappears as a big-headed "Mordor" image.
Yang Di commented that Mordor is too much like a short video special effect.
Although "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" is not very good on websites such as Rotten Tomatoes, Marvel movies have always had a wide fan base and loyal audience, so the film can still shine at the global box office.
In addition, "Ant-Man 3" shoulders the opening work of the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to the story of Kang, the heir of Thanos and the strongest villain in the entire universe.
The appearance of Kang the Conqueror will open the prelude to the Marvel Multiverse War, and if you want to save your own universe, you must travel through the past to destroy the other party's universe and pave the way for "Avengers 5".
Immediately afterwards, Marvel Studios' "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" and "Captain Marvel 2" will bury more or less pits and solve the mystery with a final battle.
Finally, spit on the conqueror Kang, the appearance is too ugly, this villain who is determined to be extremely powerful and can destroy the world is not fierce at all, but a little chattering, as if Deadpool cannon possessed.
Personally, I feel that he is not even qualified to carry shoes for Thanos.
In addition, the North American box office of "The Wandering Earth 2" stopped at $4.58 million.
On February 17, Tony Leung and Wang Yibo's "Nameless" was released in North America, and the box office has not yet come out, and it is estimated to be tens of thousands of dollars.