Luckily, things are looking solid for Ant-Man in terms of box office performance. There's no way it can perform in the vein of the likes of last years Guardians of The Galaxy (which opened with $94 million), but that movie was the exception, not the rule. A more appropriate comparison does seem to be the first Thor and Captain America movies, which both debuted with $65 million. In terms of name recognition, Ant-Man doesn't have the fame of Captain America, and even Thor (who was a C-list Marvel superhero prior to his feature films) at least was well known enough in Norse mythology that audiences knew a film focused on the character would be a fantasy action adventure.
As one might expect, the marketing for Ant-Man has tried to compensate for audiences lack of knowledge of the character, though the ads haven't had the impact of the Guardians of The Galaxy marketing, which also explained obscure Marvel characters to the general public. Still, commercials and posters have had plenty of memorable visuals, action beats and one-liners, and stronger than expected reviews should also help ambivalent viewers give the film a shot. It doesn't hurt that, in the five weeks since Jurassic World was released, no action movie has opened to over $30 million, which means Ant-Man might be able to utilize a dearth of competition in the marketplace to garner box office glory.
Those little Minions look to easily make over $50 million this weekend, even as Ant-Man opens. Weekday numbers for the movie seem to indicate the movie has decent, though not spectacular word-of-mouth, and it looks like it'll have a slightly sharper second weekend decline than Despicable Me 2 (which lost 46% in its second frame). Look for this one to lose exactly 50%, for a great $57.4 million second weekend.
One movie that might just break out this weekend is Trainwreck, Amy Schumers first starring role in a feature film. We haven't really had a Ted/Hangover-sized R-rated comedy bonanza this summer, and while it's unlikely that Trainwreck reaches those financial levels, the fact that potential comedy competitors like Ted 2 have crashed and burned means more people are likely to give Trainwreck a shot since there's no other comedies in the marketplace. It doesn't hurt that Schumers TV show, Inside Amy Schumer, has had a number of sketches this year that have increased her profile and that reviews for Trainwreck are incredibly strong.
Finally, in limited release, Mr. Holmes opens up. It's likely that Roadside Attractions will use a release method I've dubbed "Not-Quite-Limited-Not-Quite-Wide", wherein they release a movie in 360-481 theaters and then release it wide in the next week or two. They did this strategy with Mud, Friends With Kids, A Most Wanted Man and last months indie sleeper hit Love & Mercy, and considering the fame of the titular character and Ian McKellen, it's a smart move to apply it for this movie. With no exact theater count at my disposal, I'll refrain from any exact predictions, but I do speculate it'll do rather well.
Below are my opening weekend and final gross predictions for this weekends new releases as well as my projections for this weekends top 5 movies.
Ant-Man
Opening Weekend: $66 million
Total Gross: $180 million
Trainwreck
Opening Weekend: $28 million
Total Gross: $115 million
1) Ant-Man: $66 million
2) Minions: $57.4 million
3) Trainwreck: $28 million
4) Inside Out: $11.6 million
5) Jurassic World: $8.7 million
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