It was a good week to be Amy Schumer. Thursday saw her among the Best Actress nominees at the Emmys from a very competitive field and the very next day her first star vehicle movie (which she also wrote) opened to great numbers, even slightly higher than those for the more established female comic headlining a summer movie, Melissa McCarthy in Spy (which has had solid staying power and recently topped $100 million)
It was also a decent week to be Marvel Studios executives, too. Despite low grosses (comparatively for Marvel) a $57 million opening for Ant-Man has to be considered a big success given a) the characters microscopic profile in pop culture, b) a non bankable star -- Paul Rudd is well-loved but he has never been a box office draw c) a troubled production history and d) a release date in the summer in which people are just starting to be critical of Marvel Studios after ten years of drooling all over anything they did.
And of course it continued to be great summer to be Jurassic World which has amassed a simply spectacular fortune despite being merely an OK retread. Every other movie that's grossed over $500 million has had a lot more going for it in terms of newness or critical raves. I'm not trying to be mean -- it's hardly the worst movie in the top ten of all time (that honor belongs to Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace or Shrek 2) -- but the distinct probability that it could threaten Titanic's (1997) domestic gross to become the second most popular movie of all time (if you don't adjust for inflation) is unthinkable and quite depressing. So let's not think about it and become depressed...
Happy thoughts then: What was most wonderful about your weekend?
BOX OFFICE
Early Estimates. July 17th-19th Weekend
01 Ant-Man $57.5 NEW WIDE
02 Minions $47 (cum. $213.4) Tim on the Minions phenom
03 Trainwreck $30 NEW WIDE
04 Inside Out $11 (cum. $305) Inside Out Articles
05 Jurassic World $10.4 (cum. $610.1) Jurassic Articles
06 Terminator Genisys $5 (cum. $80) Review
07 Magic Mike XXL $4.4 (cum. $58.5) Review
08 The Gallows $3.8 (cum. $17.8)
09 Ted 2 $2.3 (cum. $77)
10 Mr Holmes $2.2 NEW LIMITED