For 15 years, Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe has delivered an unprecedented string of blockbusters — 32 in a row — to cement its place as the gold standard for franchise fare.
Not all of the comic book movies were created equal (“The Incredible Hulk” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” we’re looking at you), but no other Hollywood property has come close to its level of consistency. Even the less-embraced installments became box-office winners, enabling the company’s movies to earn a combined $30 billion globally. Any industry-wide fears of superhero fatigue could be quashed and quelled each time a new MCU adventure graced the big screen.
So it’s been unsettling to find out the Avengers are Earth-bound, after all. “The Marvels,” the 33rd installment in the MCU and the sequel to 2019’s billion-dollar behemoth “Captain Marvel,” cratered with $47 million in North America and $63 million internationally — the lowest opening weekend in the franchise’s history. Before this weekend, the worst debut belonged to 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” ($55.4 million, not adjusted for inflation), which premiered at the dawn of the MCU.
Marvel has been showing recent signs of wear and tear, but “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Eternals” weren’t labeled as disappointments until the end of their theatrical runs. “The Marvels” is concerning because it’s the rare misfire out of the gate for the MCU. Even in pandemic times, “Black Widow” ($80 million while landing simultaneously on Disney+), “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” ($75 million) and “Eternals” ($71 million) landed far better starts even as the world grappled with a global health crisis.
A disastrous liftoff is problematic because Marvel movies have become increasingly front-loaded, meaning these tentpoles tend to earn the bulk of their money in the first weekend of release. Fans want to be among the first to see them to avoid plot twists, cameos and other spoilers. With all the bad buzz, the $220 million-budgeted “The Marvels” may struggle to rebound as the holiday season picks up with the openings of “The Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and Disney’s animated “Wish.”
“The Marvels” wasn’t expected to go higher, further or faster at the box office than its predecessor, which introduced Brie Larson’s Lycra-clad hero Captain Marvel and collected $153 million in its opening weekend. Ticket sales for “Captain Marvel” were stratospheric in part because it was programmed as a must-see chapter in between two of the biggest movies of all time, 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” During a historic year for Disney, “Captain Marvel” became one of seven movies to gross $1 billion worldwide.
So what happened since then?
It didn’t help that actors like Larson and her co-stars Teyonah Parris (as Monica Rambeau) and Iman Vellani (as Ms. Marvel) were unable to promote the film due to the SAG strike (which finally ended on Friday). But analysts believe that may have cut off only a few million in initial ticket sales. It doesn’t explain a $100 million difference from the first film.
“Having Brie Larson and the rest of the cast on the promotional circuit could have helped boost the opening to some degree,” Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at Boxoffice Pro. “But it likely wouldn’t have offset the other significant hurdles both inherent to and outside of the film itself.”
It probably has more to do with Disney’s COVID-era strategy of quantity over quality. For the past decade and a half, Marvel has been synonymous with excellence. The brand’s track record was strong enough that heroes, like the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor and Black Panther, didn’t need to be household names to entice audiences and shatter box office records.
“Captain Marvel” arrived in theaters in an era when the MCU couldn’t miss at the box office. But in the time since, Disney has inundated viewers with countless spinoffs, sequels and TV series on both the big and small screen. Since the launch of Disney+ in 2019, Marvel has released nine television shows (with six to nine episodes each) in addition to the regular pace of three to four theatrical movies a year. Forget the casual viewer, it’s a relentless pace for devoted comic book buffs. And even they have complained about shoddy visual effects, tangled storylines and too many characters to count.
“Audiences have higher and higher expectations,” Robbins adds. “Even with factors outside Marvel’s control, a mixed reception toward several of their most highly touted films in the last few years and an often excessive volume of Disney+ series has diminished the level of urgency audiences once felt for the franchise.”
Does this mean that superhero fatigue has officially plagued the globe? Not yet. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($845 million in total) and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($690 million) were hits over the summer, and 2022’s “The Batman” ($770 million) and 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($1.9 billion) were saviors the two prior years. But it’s been clear for the first time that fans aren’t necessarily going to reliably show up no matter what’s (or who’s) on screen. It points to a future where Marvel can no longer spotlight any ol’ superhero and expect a blockbuster smash in return.
Disney, too, has proven its mortality after a remarkable stretch of sheer box-office domination. “The Marvels” joins a list of underperforming big-budget tentpoles in 2023, such as “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Haunted Mansion” remake, “The Little Mermaid” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” During a recent earnings call, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger alluded to the sparkle that’s been missing at the Magic Kingdom.
“At the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making,” said Iger, who retired in 2020 and returned at the end of 2021. “I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality. And I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.”
Expect Disney to reduce its output as it figures out its strategy for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Earlier this week, the company postponed several MCU movies, “Captain America: A Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts” and “Blade” among them, to 2025 because of strike-related production delays. It leaves “Deadpool 3” as the lone MCU film on the calendar for 2024.
“Disney realizes they need to pivot and tweak their most prominent IP,” says Jeff Bock, a senior analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “It’s not a reboot, but a rebuild.”
In the meantime, can the Merc with a Mouth restore some of that Marvel magic?
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