Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Thursday previews comparable to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 numbers

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently tracking for a $95M – $120M weekend domestically, with box office sources saying that the Thursday previews, which started at 3pm, came in around $17M – $18M. The final tally has not yet been reported by Disney, but Deadline‘s estimates say the new Paul Rudd subatomic adventure is putting up numbers that compare to the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which came out back in 2017

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the first Marvel film to be released this year and kicks off Phase 5 for the studio. Last year, the MCU debuted Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness with a $36M opening in Thursday previews, Thor: Love and Thunder with $29M in Thursday previews, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with $28M in Thursday previews.

The third film in the Ant-Man trilogy looks to be the most epic and more anticipated than its predecessors with the inclusion of popular comic villain, Kang, played by Jonathan Majors. With this hype, it is expected that this entry will be the highest earning of all the Ant-Man movies, as well as the third best Presidents Day opening ever after Black Panther back in 2018 with $242.1M and 2016’s Deadpool with $152.1M. The advance ticket sales earlier this week for Quantumania were tracking 15% behind Thor: Love and Thunder, which had opened to $144.1M.

Quantumania is already pacing ahead of the first two installments in pre-sales and showtimes and is in the running to be the top-selling February release since 2018’s Black Panther. The film is booked to show at more than 3,500 locations with over 50K showtimes programmed throughout the weekend.

Notably, this is one of two less-than-stellar reviewed Marvel film, which normally hits an audience pleasing sweet spot. Critic aggregate, Rotten Tomatoes has the rating for this entry at 48%, which barely beats out the least well-reviewed Marvel film, The Eternals, which garnered a 47% rating. However, audience scores tip the scale into a higher rating with an audience score of 84%. The reviews for the previous two installments would come in at 87% and 83%, respectively.