Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Ant-Man crawls into top spot

- RANDALL ROBERTS

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 AntMan 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 lowbudget 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 AntMan, 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 fiveday 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 kidfriendl­y franchises released earlier in the summer. A month into its run, DisneyPixa­r’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.

 ??  ?? 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.

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