Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, the much-anticipated kick off of Marvel Phase 5, is dominating the box office with $109M during it’s 3-day opening.

As of Saturday, July 18, industry estimates report Thursday previews+Friday opening at $46M and a Saturday take of $33.9M (a 26% drop off) which should take the total to $109M or more by the end of the weekend. These figures are enough to give Quantumania a new record for the Ant-Man franchise, which was previously $75.8M held by Ant-Man & the Wasp, the second installment.

This 3rd outing for Ant-Man again stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne and introduces Kathryn Newton as Cassandra Lang. It revolves around Cassie’s device intending to map the Quantum universe sucking them all it instead where they find a fully populated world led by Kang.

Reviews have so far been mixed which is not unusual for a MCU movie with the general feeling of too much packed into one film which is not unusual for the first film in the new phase – there is often a lot that will unfold and be better explained as the phase progresses thru the rest of the MCU films.

Quantumania introduces Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) who will be the big bad throughout the phase similar to Thanos’ arc thru previous phases. I should say re-introduction actually since we met Kang briefly in the Loki Disney+ series, but he is now the major focus and will be challenging many of the Avengers, though other than an expected return in Loki season 2, we do not know exactly where he will pop up.

Currently, phase 5 will encompass the following movie and TV projects:

• Ant Man & the Wasp: Quantumania (Now in theaters, movie)
• Secret Invasion (Spring 2023, Disney Plus)
• Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (May 5, 2023, movie)
• Echo (Summer 2023, Disney Plus)
• Loki season 2 (Summer 2023, Disney Plus)
• The Marvels (July 28, 2023, movie)
• Ironheart (Fall 2023, Disney Plus)
• Agatha: Coven of Chaos (Winter 2023/2024, Disney Plus)
• Daredevil: Born Again (Spring 2024, Disney Plus)
• Captain America: New World Order (May 3, 2024, movie)
• Thunderbolts (July 26, 2024, movie)
• Blade (September 6, 2024, movie)

With a solid box office start start to the phase, we have high hopes for the remaining projects.