For all the talk of franchise fatigue and superhero movies beginning to run the risk of oversaturation, 2018 has marked a crowning year for the subgenre, what with four – count ’em, four – movies occupying the domestic box office charts.
Top of the pile is Marvel’s standalone Black Panther film with a $699M tally in North America, followed by Avengers: Infinity War ($664M), Deadpool 2 ($295M) and Incredibles 2 ($206M), which recently overtook Lucasfilm’s struggling Solo: A Star Wars Story ($194M) to secure fourth place.
Solo‘s performance has been so bad, in fact – by Star Wars standards, at least – that Lucasfilm has reportedly pumped the brakes on its Anthology plans, beginning with those spinoffs dedicated to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett. But take nothing away from Hollywood’s thriving superhero genre: thanks to Incredibles 2, it now holds four of the top five spots at the 2018 domestic box office. And with Ant-Man and the Wasp still on the way, there may be room for one more.
Granted, it’s expected to open on the lower end of Marvel’s spectrum – think Thor: The Dark World levels at $75M – though there’s every chance that the pic will experience a boon in box office receipts due to the hype and excitement leftover from Avengers: Infinity War.
In terms of the domestic box office, Ready Player One ($136M) and A Quiet Place ($186M) are still clinging on to seventh and sixth place, respectively, so we imagine Ant-Man and the Wasp will likely find itself somewhere in that mid-tier territory. Either way, all will be revealed once Marvel and Peyton Reed’s teeny-tiny sequel opens nationwide on July 6th.