Two new upstarts, Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution overperformed this weekend, severely cutting into the gross for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was in its sophomore frame. Unfortunately, that meant the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe installment took the deepest plunge in franchise history, down approximately 70% from its premiere.
Does that reinforce what the naysayers have been foretelling — that general audiences are simply bored with the MCU? It might. While initial reactions were positive, although not glowing, critical reviews were terrible. That may have resulted in some passing on this pic. Comic book movies are always frontloaded with diehards checking them out ASAP to avoid spoilers, but this is the second-biggest drop for any MCU picture so far behind Thor: Love and Thunder. And unfortunately, the tepid reaction to Quantumania means that most won’t be going back to see it a second time in theaters and will just wait for it to drop on Disney+ in a couple of months.
Over this weekend, Quantumania earned an additional $32.2 million, down from last weekend’s haul of $105.5M (3-day)/ $120M (4-day).
Meanwhile, Cocaine Bear was only expected to open in the teens. With such a bonkers premise and title, the Elizabeth Banks comedy-horror over-indexed to the tune of $23.09M.
For a moment, Cocaine Bear had a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, but it has since dropped to 71%. Its audience score is 75%. Exiting viewers gave it a B- via CinemaScore. The general critique is that there isn’t enough Cocaine Bear in Cocaine Bear, with too much time spent trying to bolster the blah human characters. People just wanted to see a drugged-out bear maul humans.
Universal Domestic Distribution chief Jim Orr declared:
“This is a tremendous debut for Cocaine Bear, an outrageous comedy so well-crafted by director Elizabeth Banks. Audiences across North America were eager to see this original, hysterical film that continues what is shaping up to be a very good year at the domestic box office.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, also over-indexing was the Lionsgate faith-based drama Jesus Revolution, which took the typical approach of bypassing a traditional ad campaign, and literally preaching to the choir with a grassroots campaign targeted at churches and Christian universities.
Speaking of preaching to the choir, exiting audiences gave this an A+ and its RT audience score is 99%. But as is normally the case with faith-based films, this is just created for a niche audience. It caters directly to them, so they praise it. It doesn’t appear to actually be good with an RT critical score of 53%.
Jesus Revolution was expected to open in the single digits, but racked up $15.5M.
Check out the Top Five below:
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- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Disney) – 3-day $32.2M/ Total $167.3M/ Wk 2
- Cocaine Bear (Universal) – 3-day $23.09M/ Wk 1
- Jesus Revolution (Lionsgate) – 3-day $15.5M/ Wk 1
- Avatar: The Way of Water (Disney) – 3-day $4.7M/ Total $665.3M / Wk 11
- Puss in Boots: Last Wish (Universal) – 3-day $4.1M/ Total $173.4M/ Wk 10
It may seem unlikely, but it looks as thoumania may actually be dethroned next weekend by Creed III, the first film in the Rocky franchise to completely exclude Sylvester Stallone. Sadly, Stallone and those close to him have been vocally condemning this picture on social.
This marks the feature film directing debut for Michael B. Jordan and could be Jonathan Majors’ second big blockbuster in a row, as he stars as Kang (well… Kangs) in Quantumania. He also has the buzzy indie picture Magazine Dreams which is making the rounds of the film festival circuit and has been quite well-received. Maybe Marvel was smart locking this guy in before he officially blew up.
What did you check out this weekend?
