Let’s be honest, you don’t want to compete with a Marvel event movie, the sequel to a surprise superhero hit, or a Star Wars movie. All of that means that no other film that studios have much faith in are positioned in between these films. So, today I am going to be talking about Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story.
MAJOR NORTH AMERICAN OPENING WEEKEND PREDICTIONS – May:
- Deadpool 2 – Fox – May 18th, 2018 – $145 million
- Solo: A Star Wars Story – Disney – May 25th, 2018 – $140 million
The first Deadpool was a huge success largely due to an award-worthy marketing campaign, and the underestimated popularity of the character. It opened to $132 million, and I think the sequel’s ceiling is only maybe $25 million higher than that figure. You see, I am sort of worried about how well this film will do. I don’t think the marketing campaign has been quite as strong, and I also think it is a big problem that it is sandwiched in between Infinity War and Solo.
Speaking of Solo, that will, as I’ve previously mentioned, not be the massive success story that both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were. If you are expecting $200 million, then you absolutely will be disappointed. I originally projected this film to open stronger than Rogue One did, simply because people are naturally more interested in Lando Calrissian, Han Solo, and Chewbacca than Cassian Andor, Orson Krennic, and Baze Malbus (bonus points, if you know who all three of those people are).
But it certainly does seem like the current toxicity of the fanbase and the general opinion that Solo is unnecessary is going to make the film slip somewhat when compared with Rogue One. Of course, some may argue that Rogue One was helped by the fact that it was the first spin-off (and the first Star Wars film to be released after the mega-hit that was The Force Awakens).
Rogue One opened to $155 million, even though people really did not know about the characters beforehand (except for the big bad guy at the end of the film). Rogue One did get past $1 billion, which is something I don’t expect Solo to do, but, then again, stranger things have happened.
MAJOR OPENING WEEKENDS – April:
- Blockers – Universal – April 6th, 2018 – $20 million (+2)
- A Quiet Place – Paramount – April 6th, 2018 – $50 million (+19)
- Rampage – Warner Bros. (New Line) – April 13th, 2018 – $35 million (-3)
- Avengers: Infinity War – Disney – April 27th, 2018 – $257 million (+43)
There isn’t much to say about Blockers and Rampage here, as they did about as well as I expected them to. But I really do think that both A Quiet Place and Avengers: Infinity War overperformed greatly — and both films deserved to overperform, they were great.
A Quiet Place has become such a massive hit that people are even talking about making a sequel, which I’m not sure is the best idea, honestly. I attribute its success mostly to the very strong reviews, the excellent word of mouth, and the very simple premise. But, anyway, A Quiet Place took a production budget of about $17 million and turned it into a $259 million success story.
Infinity War, though, almost made all of that in its opening weekend. I think, for me, I was always worried that it would underperform in the eyes of the public. People often look curiously at the opening weekends of both Age of Ultron and Civil War as if something isn’t right, but Infinity War blew everything that has ever opened out of the water.
I’m the type of person who had trouble believing anything could top The Force Awakens‘ opening weekend (I thought The Last Jedi would get close, but never thought Infinity War would). I do think that Black Panther has a lot to do with the opening weekend success of Infinity War.
Black Panther was a cultural phenomenon, and it likely brought many people to the series that knew nothing of it. But, of course, it didn’t hurt that everyone — and I mean everyone — who saw it wanted to talk about that unbelievably bold ending. People are still talking about it to such an extent that I’m sure Thanos’ goal will become a well-known part of Western pop culture.
THE BILLION DOLLAR CLUB — 2018 Edition:
- Black Panther – Disney – $1.33 billion
- Avengers: Infinity War – Disney – $1.27 billion.
Disney owns 2018. In a few days, Infinity War will be at #1, and, who knows, maybe it’ll go all the way to $2 billion worldwide. I don’t think it’ll get to that, though, but it absolutely should get close in spite of the May competition.
– Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen
I'm Jeffrey Rex 