Are you sitting down? I have some big news, and I want to make sure you don't strike your head on something after you fall over from the shock of what I'm about to say. You know Avengers? That's the one with the purple guy and some people in capes. Well, somehow, by some shocking force of nature, it won this weekend's box office. It was a squeaker too. Avengers: Infinity War only made more than three times as much money as its nearest competitor. Let's look at the full results...
In all seriousness though, we need to take a moment to really appreciate what Avengers: Infinity War is doing right now. Yes, all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have done very well at the box office, but almost five hundred and fifty million dollars domestically after just three weekends is astronomical, even in comparison to most other MCU movies. Remember Ant-Man? That's more than Thor, Ant-Man and the first Captain America combined to make at the domestic box office. In fact, the only two Marvel movies ahead of it, if we're not counting foreign grosses, is the Avengers and Black Panther.
Well played, Marvel.
Outside of the MCU's dominance, there are really two main movies to talk about here. The first is Melissa McCarthy's newest comedy Life Of The Party. The flick was directed by her husband Ben Falcone, and while critics haven't been super welcoming, audiences proved once again that they'll show up for the ex-Gilmore Girls star. It grossed an estimated $18.5M this weekend. It's probably a bit early to be calling Life Of The Party a success, but if the film remained in the same budget category as Falcone's previous efforts Tammy and The Boss, both of which clocked in between $20M and $30M, then this will end up a win, or at least enough of a win for McCarthy to continue fronting comedies with moderate budgets.
The second film worth talking about is Breaking In. According to Box Office Mojo, the film was made for only $6M, and it brought in an estimated $16.5M this weekend. The thriller stars and is produced by Gabrielle Union. She's been fronting BET's Being Mary Jane over the past few years, but it's nice to see her break back out into the theater space in a big way this weekend. Hopefully this performance will remind studio executives that A) they should make more moderate budget thrillers and B) Union should be getting more offers because she is a delight.
A couple other quick notes here that I'm going to drop in their own mini-paragraphs so they seem more important:
I wish Tully was doing a little better. I realize that movie isn't for everyone, but there's a lot going on and I'm fully on board with more Diablo Cody + Jason Reitman partnerships. It's worth your time.
I wonder how much Warner Bros was expecting Rampage to gross. Are executives more annoyed about possibly not breaking $100M domestically or are they more pleased with the more than $300M it has pulled in in foreign markets?
Finally, shoutout to Black Panther for week 13 in the Top 10. It's always a good sign for movies in this day and age when customers can decide whether to buy a movie on Blu-ray or see it in theaters since it has been crushing for almost four months.
