Marvel’s ‘Ant-Man’ Shatters ‘Minions’ At Box Office With $58 Million Opening Weekend
Latest Marvel superhero release Ant-Man has stunned all and taken the award for winning box office weekend after beating out two leading competitors, Minions and Trainwreck. Ant-Man has debuted with an estimated $58 million over opening weekend, knocking over Minions, which took an estimated $50.2 million, and Trainwreck hitting even lower numbers, with $30.2 million.
Despite the killer success of the movie, Marvel’s Ant-Man actually failed to hit estimated targets of $60-65 million over its debut weekend, and has been received as the weakest Marvel Universe release of all time, following fellow Marvel titles such as The Avengers that took $207 million opening weekend, and its sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, that achieved $191 million.
Regardless of being the lowest grossing Marvel debut, Paul Rudd’s performance as the first time movie superhero Ant-Man managed to beat its looming competition successfully, and took in earnings similar to other popular movies, such as Despicable Me and Big Hero 6, that both achieved a $56 million take over their opening weekend.
Comedian Paul Rudd is cast as Marvel character Scott Lang, an engineer and petty thief afforded the ability to both shrink in size and increase in power through the acquisition of the Ant-Man suit. The story follows the pursuit of redemption, justice, and other traditional Marvel superhero themes.
Ant-Man producer Kevin Feige discussed casting of the Marvel movie with Entertainment Weekly, talking about how the casting team fell on actor Paul Rudd as the perfect candidate for the role.
“We wanted Scott Lang to have made mistakes that cost him dearly,” Feige explained. “But we wanted the audience to be rooting for him despite that. Paul Rudd can do almost anything and you’re still charmed by him.”
Known for being funny rather than heroic, Rudd told MTV News that Marvel’s Ant-Man tries to find a healthy balance of humour and action. “It’s not an out-and-out comedy,” Rudd explained. “I think that it’s a tough one to peg. There’s a lot of stuff that’s funny, but there’s also a lot of action, and there are relationships that you’ll care about. My hope is people are surprised by it.”
As well as the unique way in which Ant-Man tries to bring comedy to the forefront of the superhero gene, Rudd took extreme measures to shape up for the role of Ant-Man, using Jurassic World and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy peer Chris Pratt, who underwent a total body transformation for the roles, as inspiration.
“I’ve been working with trainers and cut stuff out of my diet: alcohol, fried foods, carbs,” Rudd laughed during the Ant-Man interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I just described what I had every day for most of my life!”
#AntMan has a @CinemaScore of A! We're bugging out that you love the movie so much! Thank you! http://t.co/LGRhUDD9Ht pic.twitter.com/zUcz9xMZKz
— Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (@AntMan) July 18, 2015
[Image credit: Marvel Studios]
