First up, a few dad bloggers attended the private chat with Paul Rudd at the SoHo Apple Store. From there, dads everywhere flocked to movie theaters to see Ant-Man on the big screen.
The result for "Ant-Man" didn't match some of Marvel's better known and brawnier properties. But "Ant-Man" — a relatively inexpensive superhero movie with a $130 million budget — still dominated North American multiplexes, edging out the little yellow guys of Universal's "Minions," which took in $50.2 million in its second week.
"Ant-Man," starring Paul Rudd as a slightly more irreverent and distinctly smaller superhero, came in a little below earlier stand-alone Marvel films like "Thor" ($65.7 million in 2011) and "Captain America: The First Avenger" ($65.1 million in 2011).
Dave Hollis, head of distribution at Disney, credited Marvel for successfully expanding its universe both in tone and audience makeup. The movie, a more humorous heist film, appealed more to women (42 percent of the audience) and families (28 percent) than most Marvel releases.
"Most encouragingly in this one, the exit scores we're seeing from women — their likelihood to recommend and how much they enjoyed the film — was higher here than almost any film we've had," Hollis said. "It's a great sign for what word of mouth should be for the run, but, two, what it means for how women think about these movies being for them as much as men might."
