There's no denying it now; the Marvel cinematic universe is off its game. Since Avengers: Endgame, the once-untouchable franchise looks mortal at the box office. Although recent Marvel movies still made a ton of cash during their inaugural week at the box office, the much-maligned phase 4 tends to sink in the second week.
Disney as a whole is in the middle of a company-wide creative tailspin. Marvel isn't the only IP at the house of mouse that's reeling. Looking to wipe the slate clean from phase 4, Marvel was hoping that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania would help right the ship, but according to AV Club, the MCU is looking at a historical 72% second-week drop for the film.
Today, in things getting improbably teensy news: Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania is on track for the single biggest second-weekend box office drop in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. This is per Variety, which reports that Paul Rudd and Peyton Reed's third adventured centered on the Pym and Lang families is on track to make roughly $30 million this weekend, dropping 72 percent from its $106 million opening last week. That'll likely still be enough to win the weekend—sorry, Cocaine Bear, you tried—but it's still a massive plummet for a film universe that usually manages significantly more staying power than this.
(Variety goes on to note that it's a pretty massive shrink even outside the bounds of the MCU; the only other movie to ever open apparently above $100 million one weekend, and then drop more than 70 percent the next, was Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2.)
