Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Starting off a little slow at the box office, at least by recent Marvel Cinematic Universe standards. During his four-day weekend, Quantumania grossed $144 million at the box office, but its staying power is what really matters for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While $144 million is the highest debut out of Marvel’s three Ant-Man movies, it’s also among the low end of recent MCU pricing. Marvel’s first opening of 2022 was also its most impressive, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness pick up $187 million in its first few days. Disney ended the year of superheroes with another strong premiere from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which pulled in $181 million in its first weekend. In the meantime, Thor: Love and Thunder came in at a relatively disappointing $144 million, which is Quantumania‘s total – although the Ant-Man movie took advantage of a holiday weekend to extend its opening and boost ticket sales.

While these movies’ openings are big, it’s the continued week-to-week success where Marvel hopes Ant-Man will reverse the studio’s recent string of box office disappointments – though, according to the MCU standards, they always pay off a lot. Both Thor: Love and Thunder And Black Panther: Wakanda Forever failed to reach the financial heights of their characters’ previous films, with love and thunder fall of almost 100 million dollars Thor: Ragnarokbrand in 2017, and wakanda forever end of 2018 Black Panther nearly $500 million.

While Quantumania avoided the extreme lows of other recent Marvel openings like Eternals, which only managed $71 million in its first weekend of 2021, it’s clear that Marvel is a little worried about fan burnout. A week before the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania created, Disney CEO Bob Iger suggested during Disney’s quarterly investor call, Marvel would release slightly less content in the near future and that “more aggressive curation” could be good for the future of the MCU.