Elizabeth Banks’ ‘Cocaine Bear’ outperforms ‘Ant-Man 3’ at the box office

‘Cocaine Bear’ surpasses ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ in its early box office numbers, whereas the latest Marvel film performs poorly on only its second weekend.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, this new thriller-action film obtained $8.7 million from its Thursday and Friday screenings. Conversely, ‘Ant-Man 3′ accumulated $8.3 million.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ‘Cocaine Bear’ is predicted to exceed all expectations by pulling in $21.21 million this weekend.

A fall from grace

‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ marks the start of the MCU’s phase 5. Yet despite the buzz, the film has garnered negative reviews both critically and from audience members.

Currently, the film has a 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a ‘B’ audience ranking on CinemaScore.

To compare, ‘Eternals’, which is widely regarded to be the worst MCU film, sits at 47 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and has a ‘B’ on CinemaScore.

Though the movie opened to a whopping $120 million, the quality of the story seems to be bringing it down.

The Hollywood Reporter predicts that the movie could fall by 71.6 percent during its second weekend. To date, no superhero movie in history has dropped by more than 70 percent.

The closest is DC’s ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ which plummeted by 69.1 percent and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ which declined by 67.7 percent.

These poor reviews likely contribute to the film’s decline at the box office.

An eccentric new film

‘Cocaine Bear’ tells the story of a drug operation gone wrong when a 500-pound black bear ingests a significant amount of cocaine. From there, the bear goes on a drug-induced rampage.

A bizarre group of characters including teenagers, criminals, cops and tourists assemble to end the bear’s tyranny.

‘Cocaine Bear’ opened in theaters on February 24.