Marvel’s Ant-Man 3 suffers record-breaking dive at the box office

Marvel Studios’ third Ant-Man film, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ hit US theaters just last week, on February 17. Despite its bloated budget and intensive marketing campaign, the movie failed to prolong its hype.

Ant-Man 3 opened to $32.2 million at the box office but subsequently suffered a 69.7 percent drop. Its rapid decline secured the blockbuster the title of worst decline out of any Marvel Cinematic Universe film.

Previously, Marvel Studios’ 2021 film ‘Black Widow’ held the record for the worst MCU movie dive of all time, with a 67.8% drop.

Ant-Man 3′s box office performance worsened after the success of competitors ‘Cocaine Bear’ and ‘Jesus Revolution’

A major factor in the underwhelming performance of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ was the unexpected success of the film ‘Cocaine Bear’ directed by Elizabeth Banks.

The American comedy-horror film earned $23.1 million at opening and was a hit amongst a similar demographic as the MCU’s targeted audience. Critics suggest this detracted from Marvel Studios’ superhero blockbuster.

Based on a true story, ‘Cocaine Bear’ follows a failed drug smuggling operation: a duffel bag filled with cocaine falls from a plane into a forest and gets ingested by a 500-pound bear, who subsequently embarks on a violent drug-fueled rampage.

Audience ratings for MCU films drop drastically

Marvel’s recent theater releases are consistently receiving lower audience scores on CinemaScore and other national public film review systems. Previously, MCU films consistently held an average A score, whereas now four out of Marvel’s six most recent titles received a B+ or lower.

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