Friday Box Office Analysis

By Kim Hollis

July 7, 2018

He does not look like someone who could be in a building made for ants!

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With the 4th of July holiday falling on a Wednesday, Disney saved the new Marvel superhero film for the weekend. Once again, the studio has a big, big winner. Also, The First Purge is in theaters, and apparently there's still an audience for this franchise despite its uncomfortable references to the real world.

After getting off to a fast start with $11.5 million in previews, Ant-Man and the Wasp earned $33.8 million for Friday (that number does include the Thursday take). In case you're wondering, the original Ant-Man took in $22.6 million on its first Friday before going on to earn $57.2 million in its debut weekend. That's actually a pretty crummy multiplier, but then again, Ant-Man wasn't much of a sure thing at the time. Now that he's appeared in the Avengers films, things are different, not to mention the fact that the sequel is more appealing to female audiences. Also, it's a pretty kid-friendly film with positive reviews (86 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and word-of-mouth (A- Cinemascore). Let's figure on an estimate of $80 million, which might be conservative. Disney doesn't often go high.




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Yet another Blumhouse production, The First Purge does pretty okay on Friday given that it's cheap ($13 million budget) and the fourth in the horror/thriller series. With $6.1 million on Friday, the Universal pictures prequel has now earned $20 million since its debut on Independence Day. For the three-day portion of the weekend, its total should come in right at $16 million, and around $30 million for the five-day holiday "weekend."

Also of note this weekend is that Incredibles 2 moved ahead of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom on the chart. The Pixar film is now in third place as it declines just 28 percent from last Friday. Meanwhile Jurassic World 2 fell 48 percent and while it's possible that Universal will lie about its weekend outcome again, Disney should finish in second place (giving it the top two films).


     


 
 

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