John Harris

That's also been the plot of just about every superhero Comic Book since the 1940s, and companies have managed to keep producing thousands (millions?) of those. Same for James Bond flicks, or pretty much any other action movie. Good guy has to stop bad guy has been around since at least Beowulf. I think Ant-Man did enough to change up the formula to keep it fresh - most critics agree. You don't need to reinvent the wheel: just make a good movie. Marvel continues to do that, at least.

After Ant-Man Both crowds I saw it with laughed loudly at that line...

. Actually, And he does get one of the biggest laughs in the movie!

The 3D was good, but Reed didn't put it to as good use as he could have. I can't think of any "object(s) coming right at you" Wow moments. But the 3D does a lot to enhance the universe when Ant-Man is ant-sized.

With that preview number, I figure anything under $60 mil is a bit disappointing, and anything over $70 mil is a pleasant surprise.

I think everyone would've been shocked had Ant-Man gotten close to 11 mil last night. 6 or 7, maybe...?

Probably sound like a fuddy duddy here, but it's a pain to try to decipher the cutesy thread titles that contain BO numbers. Can we save those for clubs, criticisms, and whatnot?

Heh, if I read you right, it seems someone's biggest issue is that JW is breaking The Avengers' OW record. As a Marvel fanatic, though, I'm kinda relieved: I'd much rather see TA's record shattered by JW than some DC flick! Now, if BvS opens to $225 mil, we'll only hear how it broke JW's OW record!

Been following BO since the 80s, and this is probably the most truly surprising opening I can ever recall. I predicted that SM would break $100-mil OW and Avengers would crack $200 mil, so neither of those was a real shock to me. I just had no idea that Jurassic Park was still this big among the movie-going public - I mistakenly thought that JP3 and a 14-year absence from theaters had kinda killed the franchise. The trailers were good but not great - that extended scene with Owen and Claire was awful, though - so I figured it could crack $100-mil OW. Yeah, I was a little off! I'm not big on whether a film "deserves" its box office or not - if it earns X amount, than that's what it deserves, is how I look at it - so even though I enjoyed the first Avengers a lot more, JW was a fun time at the movies and I'm happy for Chris Pratt. Will be interesting to see if it can touch Avengers' 2nd-weekend record - certainly seems possible, if not downright likely.

Well, half of the people in JP we wanted to see die got theirs, Gennaro and Nedry. Arnold and Muldoon were good guys who still got eaten. The main "baddie" in JW

Pratt will become Marvel's first leading man to open a non-CBM over $100 mil. I hope they've locked him up for a while, as his star is white-hot right now. They've been coy about whether the Guardians are going to appear in Infinity Wars - they better have Pratt's contract already signed by now! Then again, he seems like a good guy who truly appreciates his success, so I don't think he'd play super hardball with them. I thought JP3 had kinda dimmed the enthusiasm for this franchise; I just didn't see JW exploding like it's apparently going to... which is a good thing! I know it's kinda impossible to know, but is Pratt a big part of JW's draw?

I thought TA1 started much more slowly than AOU, which kept me engrossed from start to finish. AOU does not have the rousing YEAAAAH!!! moments that the original did, though. I just don't think those moments can ever be duplicated, because a lot of it was the thrill of seeing these characters so effectively brought to life together for the first time. This is especially true for the Hulk, who was such a disappointment (to most!) in his solo films. I'm not terribly surprised that AOU is not doing the business that the original did: I will probably end up seeing AOU 4 or 5 times; I saw TA1 ten or 11 times. If a Marvel Zombie like me is seeing it half as often, it stands to reason that casual viewers aren't going to love it as much as they did the first, either.

Too bad you didn't like AOU. I've seen it 3 times so far and enjoyed it a little more each time. Everyone I know who liked the first at least found this one tolerable, if a bit disappointing. Did Joss kick your dog or something? Will be interesting to see if it can eventually sneak by Furious 7 WW...

Using IM3 and my always-dicey math skills, I see 11.6 mil for Friday and 43.6 mil weekend for AOU. That seems optimistic, though, probably because I'm basing it on how IM3 jumped 188% from its second Thurs to its 3rd Friday. Could happen, I guess...

But there have been plenty of blockbusters whose second weekend was left clean that did not earn $77-mil, so the 2nd-best 2nd-weekend is hardly meaningless. I'm sure, if actuals show AOU below Avatar's, TDK's or CF's second weekends, that diminished ranking will become VERY meaningful to some people on this site. Apples and oranges. Paul Blart 2 was going up against nothing in mid-spring. AOU's 2nd-best 2nd-weekend is going up against every BO release ever, in regard to that particular record. Second place may be disappointing to some, but it's still notable.

Sarcasm? I mean, Mad Max IS a remake, after all...!

Point taken; pass given! The bigger point is that there are always a few people who earnestly correct the Germany/Japan reference, every time I see that quote used. I guess it's more acceptable in other forums on the 'Net, but on a Box-Office/Film site?!? "Animal House" should be required viewing!

Yeah, it's hard to be too disappointed when you remind yourself that only one movie in history has made more over its first five days than AOU... but a lot of us thought it had a legit chance to match/exceed The Avengers' records. I was never firmly on the $600-mil train, but I was very confident it would open over $200. This upcoming weekend will be very interesting. With virtually no competition, can it buck the trend we're seeing so far this week and hold strong?

You messed up Bluto's quote! It's actually, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!? NOOOO!" But, yeah, it's sad that anything less than 100% of the Internet-viewing population get that reference!

I wonder if the Fight Effect will show itself today and/or next weekend. Will we see a stronger Sunday as fight fans, who otherwise would've seen AOU last night, rush out to see it today? Or more likely, those Saturday-night-movie/Fight fans go out to see it next weekend, leading to a stronger-than-expected hold for AOU's 2nd weekend? Right now, everything is conjecture. Was Saturday weaker than expected due to WOM, franchise fatigue, or because of the fight? Hard to say just yet.

Beware the NOT A RECORD!!! claims. Remember the Nikki Finke lessons from the last Avengers flick. It's all about that Saturday number.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

So is that a guess or an actual number from somewhere?

Saw the double-feature last night at a theater that is probably near the bottom, attendance-wise, here in the Baltimore area. When we left, my brother, who attends movies there a lot, said he had never seen the parking lot anywhere near as full as it was at 10 pm last night. Doesn't mean much, but it's a good sign. It was my second time seeing AOU and I enjoyed it more this go-round, and the crowd was more into it, with much more applause during and afterward. I attribute that to the first time having been a free screening, where you get a lot more Movie Fans, as opposed to the opening-night crowd, which is filled with Avengers Fans.

I don't know what the standard should be, but showing a movie in only 4 theaters in year x and 3500-plus theaters in year y, and earning $z in year x and $3000z in year y... logic tells me that's a year y movie, at least in terms of its box office. Maybe we should always go by release date... unless the movie earns more than, say, 95% of its box office in the following year. But this kind of silliness with years happens frequently. My Ravens won the Super Bowl in Feb 2013, but the banner at our stadium says WORLD CHAMPIONS 2012 since that's when the regular season games were played. And automobiles can hit showrooms in September 2014 with their model year listed as 2015. I guess it's not worth getting too worked up about... but if you can't get fired up about it on a Box Office Discussion forum, what's this forum here for?!?