John Harris

So it will most likely pass Avatar on Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.

Heh, well, this is a North American record, so it would be a nice gesture on his part, whether he hates Hollywood or not.

So will Jim Cameron send out a public congratulatory note to Star Wars this week?

That's certainly a different take than just about everyone else on here, who seem to view $900 mil as the minimum DOM for SW. You think it'll crash pretty hard after the holidays?

Probably noted somewhere recently, but Harrison Ford will overtake Samuel L. Jackson as the highest grossing actor ever sometime this week. Ford's cumulative BO earnings will soon cross $4.6 billion to take the top spot from SLJ. Ford has appeared in 27 fewer movies than Jackson and has been the lead in a much higher percentage of his 41 films. I recall Ford holding this title for a long time after Last Crusade; good to see him back on top, even though I generally enjoy SLJ's work, also. But there's really never been a box-office draw quite like Ford before.

"Everything else"? Jar Jar? Jake Lloyd? Hayden Christensen? The "romance"? I really like Ep 3, but having watched the marathon last week, I grew no new appreciation for Eps 1 and 2. A few cool scenes wrapped around a lot of barely watchable nonsense. The battle droids were almost as annoying as Jar Jar, for instance. Hey, I'm glad you like 'em, and they're certainly not the worst movies I've ever seen, but IMO, there's more wrong than right about the prequels, especially 1 and 2. Diff'rent strokes, though...

He should be wondering why he bothered making prequels when the movie-going public clearly wanted to know what happens to Han, Luke, and Leia AFTER Return of the Jedi. Does anyone think this movie would be making this much coin if the original cast wasn't involved? Yes, the prequels had that "Star Wars brand," but THIS is the story we've been waiting to see since 1983. I remember being disappointed when Lucas announced he was going through with Eps 1, 2, and 3 - I wanted Eps 7, 8, and 9! Apparently, a lot of people still feel this way.

They still haven't made a good Star Wars film without him!

I think The Avengers should be on your list. Adjusted, it's over $640 mil and hasn't had any re-releases...?

I was at the 7-movie marathon yesterday, and was surprised to see how many women were there. I didn't take a formal poll, but my eyeballs told me it was maybe 40% women. That may sound low, but for a 19-hour marathon, which should draw in only the die-hardest of the die-hards, that seems like a pretty high number.

It's presently at 86% positive on RT, so it seems the vast majority of pro critics disagree with you.

Ten million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. And at least it would've been THE NUMBER ONE MOVIE IN AMERICA! Whoopee... but that's better than getting embarrassed by MI5. Still, I question how in the world any "analyst" could come up with that number. There were SO many negative variables to take into account, besides just Trank's tweet. And how many movie-goers were even aware of it??? I call bullsnot.

Making Vacation an R-rated "adult" film was probably a mistake. I think if today's young people are familiar with the franchise, it's more likely because of Christmas Vacation, which is aired ad nauseum during the holidays and, despite some raunchy humor, is widely consider a Modern Holiday Family Classic. To try to return to the original's R-rated roots doesn't capitalize at all on the beloved status of the franchise's Christmas film.

Ant-Man over Vacation for the 3-day weekend???

So Ant-Man becomes the 9th of 12 MCU movies to hold the top spot in its first two weeks. The three that didn't: Incredible Hulk Captain America: The First Avenger ...and, . . . ...surprisingly... Guardians of the Galaxy, which got bumped by the Turtles in its second weekend last summer, but then rebounded to take the top spot for its 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th weekends. Somehow, I don't see the Ant pulling that off! Still, it's a nice feather in Marvel's cap.

Nice little increase for AM from estimates. Should be enough to hold off any increase for Pixels (which seems more likely to drop from estimates, IMO). EDIT: And there it is! While Pixels did enjoy a huge 11K increase from estimates, it was nowhere near enough to overtake Ant-Man. Even though lousy competition was the biggest factor, it still nice to see such a lower-tier MCU movie hold on to the top spot for 2 weeks, especially since some thought it wouldn't even be number one last week.

I realize I am miles away from this movie's demographic, but I had no idea "Paper Towns" was even coming out until a few days ago. I saw no publicity for it whatsoever. And I've seen "Ant-Man" three times over the past 2 weeks at 3 different venues - I don't remember seeing a poster and definitely no trailer for it.

I'll concede the "way too similar" point, but the critical response to AOU says it's not "crap." As for this weekend: I hope Ant-Man holds on to the top spot, but I wouldn't be shocked to see Minions have a big Saturday and take number one in this weak weekend.

Plus, you know what you're getting. There aren't that many movies released each year that I feel a strong drive to see on the big screen, so if one comes out that I really enjoy, I prefer to see it multiple times rather than risk my hard-earned dollars on an unknown quantity that, considering my personal taste in films, I'm much more likely to dislike than like.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but how has Ant-Man been "neck and neck with Trainwreck all weekend"? Typo?

And if you look at Marvel's lower-grossing openings, they are the ones that had significantly greater competition than the bigger-OW films. Cap: The First Avenger was number 1 despite opening against the 2nd weekend of HP:DH2, which grabbed $47.4 mil the same WE. Thor opened at number 1 despite opening against Fast Five's sophomore frame ($32 mil). Incredible Hulk opened at the top against Kung Fu Panda's second weekend ($33.6 mil). And now Ant-Man, facing the stiffest competition of any of its MCU predecessors (two movies over $30 mil, including Minions' $49 mil, the biggest single take against an MCU opening ever). You could argue, I guess, that Ant-Man didn't do as good a job of vanquishing its competition as the other MCU movies did, but if you look at what they were up against, well, we're kind of comparing apples and oranges. Minions dropped huge against Ant-Man - could any MCU movie this side of an Avengers or Iron Man flick have caused it to drop much more than it did?

Not loving that Sunday drop for Ant-Man. Hoped strong WOM would've eased it a bit.

I thought the heat wave here on the East Coast might drive more people to their local air-conditioned theater... but I guess instead it kept them inside their air-conditioned homes!

What does any of this "my opinion's better than your opinion" discussion have to do with the Weekend Estimates?

Ouch, tough Friday number for Ant-Man. I'm hoping for one of those Marvel Saturday mega-jumps, which will be tough going up against Minions and IO, even if this is Marvel's most family-friendly flick.