quantumania

Disney Global Box Office Hits $1 Billion In 2023

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It’s only February 2023, but Disney is already dominating the box office for the year. Just six weeks into the year and they have already earned $1 billion in global box office sales. To date, the specific number is actually $1.283 billion. Historically, it has taken other studios up to a full year to reach those numbers. These impressive numbers are all thanks to the combined box office numbers of Avatar: The Way of Water and Marvel’s introduction to phase 5 of the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Additionally, the re-release of Titanic for the film’s 25th anniversary gave an additional $383 million domestically and $900 million internationally.

The long and impressive Avatar sequel by James Cameron is the primary reason for Disney’s impressive gross. Over the weekend, Avatar: The Way of Water reached a total earning of $2.2433 billion worldwide. This means that the film has officially surpassed Titanic ($2.2428 billion) as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. In the same weekend, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened in theaters worldwide and performed above expectations. The film earned an impressive $225 million in its first weekend alone.

Disney’s Box-Office Sensation

Disney Store on Oxford Street on 6th January 2023 in London, United Kingdom. The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Walt Disney or simply Disney, is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Reportedly, this is only the first of the many billions that Disney is expected to make in 2023. With movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5), The Little Mermaid remake (May 26), Elemental (June 16), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30), and The Marvels (November 10), media sources have high expectations for the studio at hand. However, the box office has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Before COVID-19, Disney broke records, generating $7 billion in 2016 and 2018. Then, in 2019, it broke its own record with $11.12 billion. That’s the biggest collective box office gross of any studio in history.

Disney ended 2022 with a $4.9 billion gross at the box office, which includes domestic and international sales. Of that, Avatar: The Way of Water was the only pandemic-era release to hit a billion in gross box office sales. Shawn Robins, chief analyst at BoxOfficePro had something to say about this. He explained, “Disney was coming off such a historic run of box office years that even without the pandemic or streaming-intense strategies, it would have been a challenge to duplicate. Nevertheless, this is an encouraging start to 2023. It will still take some time, but this may be the beginning of an important turnaround for the biggest studio in the world.”

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“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” Box Office Expectations Revealed

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Paul Rudd is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The film is going to reignite things at the movie theater box office. Expectations are high for the third Ant-Man movie. The film has an estimate of $95 million to $100 million gross throughout the opening weekend in North America. Extending estimates to President’s Day on Monday brings the anticipated gross to $110 million. It will likely take the number one spot from Magic Mike’s Last Dance. Internationally, Quantumania estimates range from $130 million to $190 million, with an overall estimate of $160 million.

According to domestic box office estimates, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will likely gross lower than recent Marvel titles like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($185 million), Thor: Love and Thunder ($144 million) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($181 million). This isn’t uncommon for Ant-Man movies. However, Quantumania is getting a huge spike compared to the previous films centered around the micro-superhero. The original Ant-Man grossed at $57 Million. Its sequel, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, grossed $76 million domestically and $161 million on a global scale.

Quantumania Takes Off

Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly attend the “Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania” UK Gala Screening at BFI IMAX Waterloo on February 16, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

In the film, Ant-Man, his daughter, the Wasp, and others are sent to a mysterious Quantum Realm, which defies the laws of space and time. Evangeline Lilly, who plays the Wasp, has returned for Quantumania. Additionally, Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglass are coming back to the franchise. Jonathan Majors will star as Kang the Conqueror. Plus, Kathryn Newton will play Scott Lang’s daughter, and William Jackson Harper will play Quaz. The film is the 31st installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will kick off Phase Five and introduce the true nature of Kang the Conquerer.

Reviews vary for the film. According to Rolling Stone, “An ant can carry 10-15 times its body weight, yet as the designated kick-off film tasked with setting up the next two-phase, multi-movie/TV arc, ‘Quantumania’ is still being crushed by having to bear way too much of a franchise burden.” However, in Variety’s review, chief film critic Owen Gleiberman praised the work of Jonathan Majors. He said, “With no motion-capture makeup to hide behind, Jonathan Majors holds you with the quiet force of his pensive scowl. You hang on his every word; he makes vengeance and genocide sound like the most hypnotically casual of propositions.” 

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Jonathan Majors “Walked Out” Of His First Marvel Meeting: Details

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Jonathan Majors will be starring as Kang the Conquerer, the new big bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His levels of evil will lead all the way through Avengers: The Kang Dynasty in 2025. However, Majors revealed to Vanity Fair that he decided to walk out of his first meeting with the studio. He told VF, “I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass, but I walked out of my Marvel general [meeting]. This was a long time ago. I had just gotten out of drama school and I’m running around town and I’m sitting in the office. I grew up in a very particular way and I don’t want to waste nobody’s time. So I got in there and they’re just busy. And I was like, ‘I’m supposed to be here, right?’ It got long and I went, ‘I’m just going to go. It’s cool. I’ll just go.’”

Thankfully, though Jonathan Majors walked out of the meeting, he didn’t make it out of the building. He said, “I got to the door, but then they said [casting director] Sarah Finn was going to come. We got in the room and we chatted. We were having this great conversation. I think it was three years later that we had the Kang chat. And there’s no trepidation now, especially because of who Kang is. When I said yes, we got the whole picture, and what is being laid out is cohesive.”

Jonathan Majors

Jonathan Majors attends the European Premiere of Creed III at Cineworld Leicester Square on February 15, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Warner Bros.)

Marvel Studios President, Kevin Feige says that Jonathan Majors’ role in The Last Black Man in San Francisco is what caused them to reach out to him. Majors made his Marvel Debut as Kang in the series, Loki, on Disney+. However, he was playing a variant of Kang, not the version shown in Quantumania. His performance in the highly-anticipated Marvel film is receiving high amounts of praise. Apparently, love for Majors’ Kang was prevalent even during film testing. Feige said, “In the early days of ‘Quantumania’ [test screenings], Jonathan started to pop in a big way. He’s the highest-testing villain we’ve ever had in any of our friends and families [screenings]. That’s really saying something with a movie like this. Even early on without the effects, Jonathan is his own effect. He was working from the start.”

Feige continued, saying that “it’s always one of the fun rolls of the dice that we do at Marvel, which is to say: ‘Hey, we’re going to make multiple movies around this character, and we’re going to start before the audience has even had a chance to meet him.’ We really go all in on these ideas and this casting. It was a big relief when the season ender of ‘Loki’ season 1 happened. People really seem to be on board for Kang. People are chanting, ‘Kang!’ when Jonathan goes on talk shows, and they haven’t even seen him in the movie yet!” Said movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, opens in theaters Feb. 17 from Disney.

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Jonathan Majors’ Kang Is Marvel’s “Highest-Testing Villain” Ever

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From Tom Hiddleston (Loki) to Josh Brolin (Thanos), the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had numerous memorable villain performances. However, according to the president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer has the highest test screening score of them all. Kang was initially introduced in the Disney+ series Loki, and is now debuting as a villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. In Loki, Kang was playing a variant of Kang, not the version that fans will see in the highly-anticipated Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

The film sets him up to be the new Thanos of the MCU. He’s Marvel’s new big bad, and he does it well. Feige told Entertainment Weekly, “For years, we’ve always had the inkling that Kang would be an amazing follow-up to Thanos. He’s got that equal stature in the comics, but he’s a completely different villain. Mainly, that’s because he’s multiple villains. He’s so unique from Thanos, which we really liked.”

Jonathan Majors Succeeds

Jonathan Majors attends Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” at Regency Village Theatre on February 06, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

The Marvel Studios president went on to tell Entertainment Weekly that, “In the early days of ‘Quantumania’ [test screenings], Jonathan started to pop in a big way. He’s the highest-testing villain we’ve ever had in any of our friends and families [screenings]. That’s really saying something with a movie like this. Even early on without the effects, Jonathan is his own effect. He was working from the start.” Characters like Thanos have significantly higher amounts of CGI and effects needed than Kang to make them work. It’s impressive that Majors was able to wow audiences with his performance of Kang the Conquerer even prior to the assistance of visual effects.

Feige said, “It’s always one of the fun rolls of the dice that we do at Marvel, which is to say: ‘Hey, we’re going to make multiple movies around this character, and we’re going to start before the audience has even had a chance to meet him. We really go all in on these ideas and this casting. It was a big relief when the season ender of ‘Loki’ season 1 happened. People really seem to be on board for Kang. People are chanting, ‘Kang!’ when Jonathan goes on talk shows, and they haven’t even seen him in the movie yet!” Watch Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conquerer in Disney and Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which premieres in theaters on February 17, 2023.

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