Referenews

The first movie in the series, “Ant-Man,” released in 2015, earning $57 million domestically in its opening weekend, while its 2018 sequel, “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” grossed $76 million in its debut, according to Comscore. 

The latest release was the first major-studio franchise movie of 2023, a year that exhibitors are hoping shows more progress in rebounding from the Covid-19 pandemic.

All three movies in the franchise feature Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas in leading roles and are typically breezier, more lighthearted fare than the epics of Marvel’s Avengers franchise. Mr. Rudd’s Ant-Man character also appears in several Avengers movies as a member of the superhero squad. 

“Quantumania” takes on a darker tone than previous installments. Ant-Man, also known as Scott Lang, along with his partner Hope van Dyne, played by Evangeline Lilly, and daughter Cassie, played by Kathryn Newton, battle Kang the Conqueror, the new villain who is set to feature in some of Marvel’s upcoming superhero movies.

Kang, played by Jonathan Majors, is a jaded galactic emperor living in exile in the subatomic “quantum realm,” who can flatten his adversaries with blasts of blue energy. Much of the movie is shot against a dark background of computer-generated cities and cavelike panoramas, rather than the sunny California settings that filled the first two Ant-Man movies.

“Quantumania” fared poorly in two metrics, receiving the worst-ever evaluations for a Marvel movie on both CinemaScore, which gave the movie a “B” rating, and on Rotten Tomatoes, which showed that 48% of critics gave the movie a positive review. By contrast, 84% of audiences reported to Rotten Tomatoes as of Sunday that they had a favorable view of the movie.

Disney said it was pleased with opening-weekend results. Tony Chambers, Disney’s head of global theatrical distribution, in an interview described the early domestic box-office results as “phenomenal,” adding that they exceeded studio projections of $95 million to $100 million.

The most recent Marvel movie, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” for example, opened to $180 million in domestic ticket sales in November, but it was the sequel to a movie that generated more than $1.3 billion at box offices worldwide.

Some critics homed in on the plot of “Quantumania,” which is informed by the appearance of the Kang character in the 2021 Disney+ series “Loki.” Characters and story lines in Marvel movies have become increasingly intertwined with those of the studio’s television shows, making it harder for some fans who aren’t familiar with the entire Marvel canon. Last year’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” for example, followed plot threads based on “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and the Disney+ series “WandaVision.”

“The interconnectivity of the storylines—has been and will continue to be a part of Marvel’s storytelling,” Mr. Chambers said. 

The new “Ant-Man” movie also kicks off what Disney describes as Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which consists of over a dozen films and seasons of TV shows planned through at least 2024. Marvel divides its stories into themed phases that typically serve as launchpads for new characters and plotlines.

Opening-weekend ticket sales for “Quantumania” were the lowest for a Marvel movie since 2021’s “Eternals,” which made its debut to $71 million in domestic receipts. “Eternals,” which was hurt by theater-shy audiences who were largely living under Covid lockdowns, flopped, at least by Marvel standards. It generated $402 million in global ticket sales, making it the second-lowest grossing Marvel movie since Disney acquired Marvel in 2009. 

“When you compare it to the other Ant-Man movies, it’s showing progressive growth, which I think actually bodes very well for where the franchise is going,” said Mike Polydoros, president of PaperAirplane Media, a movie marketing agency, about the latest Marvel film.

Chasing “Quantumania” this weekend at the box office was another Disney-distributed title, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which added enough to its global haul to become the third-highest grossing movie of all time, at $2.24 billion in ticket sales. The second “Avatar” movie overtook “Titanic” for the number three spot, giving a new ranking to director James Cameron’s three of the four highest-grossing movies in history. The number-two spot is still held by Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame.”

“Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” from Warner Bros. Pictures, was the weekend’s third-best performer, adding $5.5 million in domestic gross, followed by “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” an animated family feature distributed by Universal Pictures, with $5.2 million in domestic ticket sales.

Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com