Update: ANT-MAN tracking is on the rise.

On New Year’s Eve, we posed the question, where is Paul Rudd in the ANT-MAN campaign? At the time, the campaign was focusing heavily on Jonathan Majors as “Kang.”

Back then, awareness and interest for QUANTUMANIA were lagging behind BLACK ADAM, which opened to $65M. But, the campaign has shifted its focus to the rest of cast including Rudd. On January 9^h, Disney released a cast ensemble poster with Rudd in the center (below, far left) along with a new trailer. A week later, we got a series of very colorful character poster. 

As a result, the tracking for the film has soared. 

Let’s take a look at the numbers. 

For comps, we’re using THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, which opened to $144M and BLACK ADAM, which debuted to $67M.  THUNDER is not necessarily a perfect comp since the THOR films have always grossed more than the ANT-MAN movies. For example, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, the most recent and highest grossing film in the series, opened to $76M. That’s less than half of THUNDER. That’s a roundabout way of saying that we wouldn’t expect QUANTUMANIA to track as well as THUNDER. Still, we’re going to use it as a dare-to-dream comp. 

ADAM isn’t a perfect comp either. ADAM was a stand-alone film that introduced a character. Those films always earn less than later entrees in a series. But, with its $76M debut, it performed in the same neighborhood as the ANT-MAN films. Given that expectations are for QUANTUMANIA to be the biggest film in the franchise, we would expect it to track better than ADAM.

Let’s start by looking at awareness. At the beginning of the year, awareness for ANT-MAN (dark yellow) was at 35%. Since then it’s rocketed up to 46%. Yet, despite the gains, awareness still trails ADAM (light yellow) and THUNDER (brown).  At 46%, it’s still much lower than we would expect. Hopefully, this steep upward rise will continue. 

While the gains in awareness are nice and even expected – frankly, it would be shocking if awareness for QUANTUMANIA didn’t start rising – it’s the gains in interest that are most encouraging. Interest for QUANTUMANIA (dark blue) is not at 6.0. It still trails THUNDER (black) at the same distance from release, but it has climbed above ADAM (light blue) at 5.9. 

We often say that as a rule of thumb, a film is in a good place if interest is above 6.0 by the time the it opens. When we’re talking about Marvel/DC films, we want to see interest above 6.5. As you can see below, four of the five Marvel/DC releases had interest scores above 6.8. THUNDER (black) reached 7.0, while ADAM stalled at 6.3.  

Fortunately, QUANTUMANIA is opening on a four-day weekend, which will help. For the purposes of this analysis, however, we’re discuss QUANTUMANIA in terms of its three-day prospects. These numbers suggests that QUANTUMANIA can top the $67M opening for ADAM across three days, but it still has work to do if it hopes to if it hopes to top the $76M opening for the last ANT-MAN film.