Ant-Man crawls into top spot

Evangeline Lilly plays the Wasp/Hope van Dyne and Paul Rudd play Ant-Man/Scott Lang in Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $76 million.
Evangeline Lilly plays the Wasp/Hope van Dyne and Paul Rudd play Ant-Man/Scott Lang in Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $76 million.

LOS ANGELES -- A battle starring heroic insect people or an origin story on a murderous human purge?

Last weekend, moviegoers opted for the fun-loving hymenopteran fight -- to the tune of about $76 million -- as Disney-Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp reigned supreme at the box office over a pair of steadfast family franchises and the arrival of The First Purge, the fourth installment of Universal's low-budget herd-thinning series.

Ant-Man and the Wasp brought in another $85 million overseas for a combined $161 million in sales, according to box-office measurement firm comScore. That's good news for Disney, as the sequel to the comedic Ant-Man, which co-stars Paul Rudd as the titular superhero and Evangeline Lilly as the Wasp, outpaced ticket sales for the 2015 debut by 33 percent and earned a positive Rotten Tomatoes score of 86 percent.

The First Purge, which opened on July 4, earned about $17.4 million in its first weekend for a combined five-day total of $31.3 million.

The fourth-place finish by Purge didn't satisfy too many fans, who gave it a score of 39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, Universal and Blumhouse accountants likely aren't sweating it: The movie had a $13 million budget.

That performance wasn't enough to out-earn two kid-friendly franchises released earlier in the summer. A month into its run, Disney-Pixar's Incredibles 2 earned $28.4 million to land in third place, along the way surpassing the $500 million mark in North America and $773 million worldwide.

Universal's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom came in second with a $28.6 million haul over three days in its third week of release for a North American total of $333.4 million. Internationally, moviegoers have spent $1 billion to watch Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard wrangle pterodactyls.

The fifth highest grossing film of July's inaugural weekend was another sequel: Sicario: Day of the Soldado. The follow-up banked $7.6 million in its second weekend for a total of $35.6 million.

Meanwhile, Focus Features' documentary on Fred Rogers, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, added 239 locations in its fifth weekend of limited release and grosses subsequently jumped 7 percent. The film, which celebrates the late kids show host known for his messages of optimism and joy, earned about $2.6 million for a cumulative total of about $12.4 million in 893 theaters.

A less hopeful documentary, Whitney, about the life and tragic death of singer Whitney Houston, tallied about $1.3 million on 452 screens. The film, produced by Roadside Attractions and Miramax, was directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void).

And an acclaimed debut by Oakland, Calif.-based writer/director Boots Riley of rap team the Coup earned outsize attention at the box office. Annapurna Pictures' Sorry to Bother You opened in a mere 16 theaters, but earned $727,266, for an impressive average of $45,454 per theater.

Starring Lakeith Stanfield, Armie Hammer, Tessa Thompson, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt and Omari Hardwick, the film centers on a telemarketer whose unusual methods for professional success put his personal morals at odds. In addition to earning a 74 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie earned high praise from the likes of Get Out director Jordan Peele.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:

  1. Ant-Man and the Wasp, Disney, $75,812,205, 4,206 locations, $18,025 average, $75,812,205, 1 week.

  2. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Universal, $28,632,375, 4,349 locations, $6,584 average, $333,390,040, 3 weeks.

  3. Incredibles 2, Disney, $28,406,423, 4,113 locations, $6,906 average, $503,767,837, 4 weeks.

  4. The First Purge, Universal, $17,374,280, 3,031 locations, $5,732 average, $31,280,225, 1 week.

  5. Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Columbia, $7,624,500, 3,055 locations, $2,496 average, $35,626,570, 2 weeks.

  6. Uncle Drew, Lionsgate, $6,606,643, 2,742 locations, $2,409 average, $29,930,263, 2 weeks.

  7. Ocean's 8, Warner Bros., $5,067,750, 2,604 locations, $1,946 average, $126,533,978, 5 weeks.

  8. Tag, Warner Bros., $3,029,790, 2,157 locations, $1,405 average, $48,255,471, 4 weeks.

  9. Won't You Be My Neighbor? Focus Features, $2,571,210, 893 locations, $2,879 average, $12,362,937, 5 weeks.

  10. Deadpool 2, 20th Century Fox, $1,675,074, 1,267 locations, $1,322 average, $314,546,474, 8 weeks.

  11. Sanju, Fox International Productions, $1,281,466, 359 locations, $3,570 average, $5,995,791, 2 weeks.

  12. Whitney, Roadside Attractions, $1,274,051, 451 locations, $2,825 average, $1,274,051, 1 week.

  13. Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disney, $1,071,432, 778 locations, $1,377 average, $210,931,529, 7 weeks.

  14. Hereditary, A24, $1,025,174, 744 locations, $1,378 average, $41,885,804, 5 weeks.

  15. Avengers: Infinity War, Disney, $936,335, 506 locations, $1,850 average, $674,865,809, 11 weeks.

  16. Sorry to Bother You, Annapurna Pictures, $727,266, 16 locations, $45,454 average, $727,266, 1 week.

  17. Three Identical Strangers, Neon Rated, $684,773, 51 locations, $13,427 average, $1,009,720, 2 weeks.

  18. Superfly, Columbia, $626,383, 535 locations, $1,171 average, $19,834,783, 4 weeks.

  19. Book Club, Paramount, $433,208, 374 locations, $1,158 average, $67,172,334, 8 weeks.

  20. Leave No Trace, Bleecker Street, $403,010, 37 locations, $10,892 average, $781,675, 2 weeks.

MovieStyle on 07/13/2018

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