‘The Marvels’ Plummeting 79% At the Box Office Means There’s a 100% Chance That Everything We Know About the MCU Is About To Change

After two consecutive weekends of overwhelming MCU lows, the Captain Marvel franchise tagline of “Higher. More. Faster” starting to sound like a cruel joke.

Despite the fact that a film that grossed over $1 billion continued in 2019, The Marvels debuted to the lowest opening weekend gross of any Marvel Studios production. In its second weekend, things got even worse with a fatal 79% drop in its earnings at the box office (via Diversity), the sharpest, fastest decline of any comedy film ever. Yes, even Morbius (which had a 74% weekend 2 drop, FYI).

As The WrapScott Mendelson said, “I’ve never seen a sequel to a movie as successful as it was Captain Marvel ($1.128 billion) performing equally poorly The Marvels.” Mendelson even pointed out that the effort starring Brie Larson is definitely doomed to go down worse than another famous sequel to come from Disney. “Alice Through The Looking Glass‘ $299 million cume (after Alice in Wonderlandand $1.025 billion cume) to be ambitious at this point,” he warned.

Overall, therefore, The Marvels proving to be a very specific end to Marvel’s 2023, which began with Ant and the Wasp: Quantumania, remains the worst MCU flick in its history. As fans feared, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3Critical and commercial success is great for Marvel right now, but it bodes well for James Gunn’s DCU and its eventual arrival in July 2025. Superman: Legacy (which he succeeded escape unscathed from the strikes).

And his reputation grows more and more tarnished with each new flop that comes along, and with the threat of a real rival to come from Warner Bros. ultimately, maybe it’s time for Marvel to completely flip the script on its entire approach. the once pioneering cinematic universe format. One possible reading of the recent superhero projects at the box office is that audiences are less interested in discussing films and are now just one chapter in a longer chain. Look at the Barbenheimer phenomenon: what cinema-goers need now – or again – are events. Not a big screen TV episode.

The last MCU movie to cross the coveted $1 billion mark was no fluke Avengers: Endgamebut whether the flux is present Avengers: The Kang Dynasty they’ll be able to do that themselves when it lands in May 2026, if Marvel continues its current downward spiral remains to be seen. The studio is already in the middle of reviving their flagship streaming content – by returning to the traditional mode of TV shows and launching the standalone Marvel Spotlight banner. He feels that we are in need of a similar change, even more, to come for his film tours as well.

It will take smarter brains than mine to figure out exactly what needs to be done, but something It must be done, if Marvel ever hopes to fly higher, further, faster again.