Weekend Box Office Report: July 17-19, 2015

Ant-Man is big enough for #1!

Marvel's smallest champion jumped into action on the big screen this weekend, putting ANT-MAN on top with an estimated opening of $58 million!

While it was enough to steal first place, Paul Rudd's shrinking superhero had the second-lowest opening for a Marvel movie, ahead of THE INCREDIBLE HULK's $55.4 million debut but under the $65 million opening scored by CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.

The $130 million production did have its share of development drama, but the Marvel brand is a strong selling point judging by the success of last summer's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. Still, that brand will obviously carry a relatively unknown character just so far, despite being part of a wildly successful cinematic universe.

Critics were mostly down with ANT-MAN (79% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences gave it a straight 'A' CinemaScore. The movie has collected a $114 million worldwide total.

Last weekend's winners waddled to second place as MINIONS gathered another $50.2 million, a 56% drop from its opening. The DESPICABLE ME spinoff is already at a 10-day domestic total of $216.6 million, and its global total is up to $625 million. Between MINIONS and the massive success of FURIOUS 7, JURASSIC WORLD and FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, Universal is having one hell of a year so far (and without any comic book characters).

Speaking of Universal, their R-rated comedy TRAINWRECK opened in third with $30.2 million, the second-biggest opening from director Judd Apatow behind KNOCKED UP's $30.6 million opening. The Amy Schumer headliner (which cost a reported $35 million) received a solid 85% Rotten Tomatoes average from critics, and an 'A-' CinemaScore from moviegoers.

In fourth place was Pixar's INSIDE OUT with $11.6 million over its fifth weekend in theaters. The animated head-crew's $306.3 million domestic total has passed UP to become the studio's third-biggest hit, and it is swimming towards the tail of FINDING NEMO's $339 million total.

JURASSIC WORLD is still terrorizing the Top 5 after a month and a half in theaters, now in fifth with $11.4 million. Its gargantuan totals ($611 million domestic and $1.513 billion worldwide) currently place it in fourth on the all-time domestic and worldwide highest-grossing lists, with THE AVENGERS within its reach on both.

On the bottom half of the chart, TERMINATOR: GENISYS seems unlikely to make it to the domestic $100 million mark but has pulled in $277 million worldwide. MAGIC MIKE XXL is still slowly grinding along, and the low-budget horror release THE GALLOWS lost 59% of business from its opening last week.

TED 2 is getting ready to shuffle off the list with less than half of what the original made, while Ian McKellan's aged Sherlock movie MR. HOLMES doddered into the Top 10 on just 363 screens, with a healthy response from critics (86% on Rotten Tomatoes).

Outside the chart, the Ryan Reynolds/Ben Kingsley sci-fi thriller SELF/LESS disappeared after a single week, going along with MAX and the Bollywood epic BAAHUBALI: THE BEGINNING. In limited release, Woody Allen's IRRATIONAL MAN had a decent $37k per-screen average.

Next weekend has Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage fighting retro video game invaders in PIXELS, Jake Gyllenhaal gets in the ring for SOUTHPAW, and there's teen drama in PAPER TOWNS.

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