'Ico II' Back on Top with $38M, ‘Quantumania’ Worst Drop For A Marvel Movie, ‘Cocaine Bear’ Very High On $21M & ‘Jesus Revolution’ Praises $14M+ – Saturday Box Office

FRIDAY PM: Oh no, those tepid audience exits and B CinemaScore are impacting the second weekend of Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is currently seeing an OMG 71% drop with a $30M second FSS and a $7.8M second Friday, -83% (read the review). If that estimate holds, it’s worse than Thor: Love and Thunder‘s -68% second weekend and Eternals’ -62%. Running total by Sunday EOD would be $165.3M.

While in a surprising feat, Super Bowl weekend winner Ico II is expected to come back to the top with a possible $40M weekend bringing it to $351M after a $9.8M third Friday at 4,400 theaters.

Meanwhile, Universal’s Cocaine Bear is feasting on $8.1M today at 3,534 theaters for what looks to be a $20M opening (read the review). Very, very good. Let’s hope nobody gets too grossed out by all those body parts between Friday and Saturday. The movie is reunion of sorts for The Americans castmates Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys and Margo Martindale.

Lionsgate’s Jesus Revolution, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, is looking at $6.6M today (including $3.3M in previews) and a very good $13.5M at 2,475 (read the review). Does the distributor have another I Can Only Imagine on its hands? Jon Erwin co-directed both movies. That 2018 movie opened to $17.1M and legged out to a 4.8 multiple with $83.4M stateside. Jesus Revolution’s two-day gross saw AMC leading in ticket sales (26%), with Regal not far behind at 23% and Cinemark third at 18%.

Orion's Detective Carl Returns at 2,852 sites is seeing a 7th Friday of $1.6M (-24%), and a weekend of $6.3M, -44% and a running total of $382.4M.

20th Century Studio/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water booked at 2,495 theaters is seeing a 11th Friday of $938K (-32%), and weekend of $4.25M, -47% and a running total of $664.8M (read the review).

Uni/DreamWorks Animation’s 10th Friday of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish at 2,840 sites is eyeing $850K, for a 3-day of $3.9M, -27%, and running total of $173.2M.

FRIDAY AM: Universal’s campy R-rated genre pic Cocaine Bear from Elizabeth Banks lifted $2M last night from previews at 3,000 theaters that began at 5 p.m.

The $30M-budgeted movie, in a weekend that easily will be dominated by Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with an estimated $40M (-62%), is set to do in the high teens, pulling in guys (62% last night) and the 18-34 crowd (who showed up at 72%) at 3,534 theaters.

Any overindexing would be a surprise. The pic already has alright exits with 82% from Rotten Tomatoes’ audiences and four stars on ComScore and Screen Engine’s PostTrak and 72% fresh from critics. Uni/Blumhouse’s winter horror hit M3GAN was 94% certified fresh from Rotten Tomatoes critics, 78% with the aggregator site’s audiences, a B CinemaScore and 3 1/2 stars on PostTrak. Last night’s ticket sales are higher than the $1.1M previews of Universal’s Violent Night (which opened to $13.4M in December and legged out to $49.8M stateside) and they’re just under M3GAN‘s $2.75M, which turned into an $11.7M Friday, $30.4M opening.

Cocaine Bear is inspired by a 1985 true story when cocaine went missing in a Georgia forest after a drug runner’s plane crash, with a black bear gobbling the goods. In the movie, the beast goes on a rampage, taking out cops, criminals and hikers. WETA was involved in the CG creation of Cokey the bear, the main protag here.

Lionsgate is opening wide its faith-based title, Jesus Revolution, which already has five stars and 85% definite recommend on PostTrak. We heard that the studio pulled in an estimated $2M from Wednesday previews alone. Lionsgate is reporting $940K from last night’s previews for a lump sum of $3.3M since Wednesday. Tracking had this Kingdom Story Company movie in the single digits, but it potentially could hit $10M at 2,475 locations.

Logline: In the 1970s, young Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) is searching for all the right things in all the wrong places — until he meets Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), a charismatic hippie street preacher. Together with Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), they open the doors of Smith’s languishing church to an unexpected revival of radical and newfound love, leading to what Time magazine called a “Jesus Revolution.”

While Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania got juice from the Presidents Day Monday with $14.2M, discount Tuesday wasn’t so robust, with only $7M this past week, even falling behind Ico II 's $8.8M. Wednesday was $3.8M, but yesterday eased only 3% for $3.7M getting the Peyton Reed-directed sequel to a first week of $135M at 4,345 theaters.

Ico II regained it's number one spot on its second Tuesday in a huge surprise buoyed by great WOM with $8.8M (-70%) and held the number one spot since then with a $6.5M Wednesday and Thursday for a 14-day running total of $311M.

20th Century Studio/Disney/Lightstorm’s Thursday for Avatar: The Way of Water was around a half-million, +2% for a 10th week of $9.7M at 2,675 and running total of $660.6M.

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Oscar-nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish saw an estimated $432K ninth Thursday, +3% and a week of $8.5M for a $169.3M running total.

The second Thursday of Warner Bros.’ Magic Mike’s Last Dance (read the review) posted $405K, -3% from Wednesday for a second week of $7.6M and running total of $20.2M at 3,034 venues.

Paramount’s 80 for Brady (read the review) booked at 3,199 theaters, grossed $409K in fifth place on Thursday for a near $6M third week, $34.6M running total.