‘The Marvels’ Meltdown: Disney MCU Seeing Lowest B.O. Opening Ever At $47M+ — What Went

Marvel / Walt Disney Studios

UPDATED SATURDAY, refresh for more…: The last-minute push for The Marvels with an appearance by star Brie Larson on The Tonight Show and at a theater in NYC post-actors strike have not weekend moved grosses any higher for what is Marvel Studios‘ The Marvels which is seeing a Friday in the vicinity of where we expected it at $21.3M and a weekend opening between $47M-$52M, the lowest ever for Disney‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, also, The Marvels gets one of several post-pandemic B CinemaScores from audiences after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (B+), Thor Love & Thunder (B+), Eternals (B), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (B). Disney’s official numbers are coming soon.

By all accounts and by all sources, a disastrous result for a $200M Marvel Studios movie. But, wait, didn’t you declare Apple Original Studios’ and Paramount’s $200M Killers of the Flower Moon at $44M a success a few weeks ago? Just sit down, I’ll explain in a bit. The Marvels misfire is about the rusting of a platinum brand that’s in need of some serious –not polishing, rather resurfacing.

As we mentioned earlier there’s a maelstrom of reasons as to why The Marvels didn’t work. Many will be quick to point to ‘Superhero fatigue’ and that the great Comic-book movies of the millennium are now seeing their grand demise just like the big Hollywood musicals of the 1960s.

No.

Marvel die-hards are devoted bunch and when they know there’s a good movie on deck, they show up several times. Just a year ago, sequel Wakanda Forever: Black Panther scored an A, was in the Oscar mix with ultimately five noms (and a win), and opened to a massive $181.3M and legged out to a near half billion stateside, and $859M worldwide. Also, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 didn’t do too shabby for Disney with a $118.4M opening, and $359M domestic and $845M, etc. Excellent superhero movies sell, and there was no pulse on The Marvels going back to San Diego Comic-Con. I mean, despite the actors strike, there wasn’t a damn banner, billboard or emblazoned logo plastic bag in the city. Why miss out on that opportunity before the 150K who still attended? It’s as though Disney knew this whipped-creame sequel was a dud, and cut their losses.

No, The Marvels meltdown isn’t about superhero fatigue, it’s about Disney’s overexposure of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brand on Disney+ and those moth holes are beginning to show: Keep what’s meant for the cinema in cinemas, and keep what’s meant for in-homes in the home. Meaning, this whole cross-over streaming-into-film master plan isn’t working, nor is it really connected in a jaw-dropping way, and with Ms Marvel not being one of the OTT services better series (ala WandaVision and Loki season one), there’s a whole quad of fans who either didn’t catch Ms Marvel or who were too turned off by it that they sure as heck don’t want to see The Marvels.

But more to the point, Marvel Studios, The Marvels with its cross-over streaming series blah-blah looks like it was built to be seen in homes, not to get audiences off the catch.

It’s interesting: with the launch of Echo on Disney+, Marvel has branded the series under a new label ‘Marvel Selects’, encouraging viewers that this type of content doesn’t take an investment by them in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. They can approach Echo as though it’s a one-off series. That shift by Marvel Studios indicates it’s breaking free of spreading the MCU thinly across TV shows and movies (this despite the fact that Echo is a spinoff of Hawkeye and Daredevil). Marvel, let’s go back to the Netflix days when Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Punisher lived in homes, and not on the big screen. It’s clearly better for business.

How could you make a less serious feature sequel to a $1.1 billion-grossing WW movie that is Marvel’s Wonder Woman —Captain Marvel? That movie is the highest grossing female superhero movie of all-time, more than Wonder Woman ($823.9M WW). Yes, we all say to make superhero movies lighter and not darker, but in the case of The Marvels it’s a 180-degree shift from the original movie’s heroic roots. The Marvels instead is some sort of time-jumping, silly comedy that fans weren’t asking for. It’s a swing that has greatly cost Marvel Studios the entire Captain Marvel franchise relegating her now to a supporting character in the rest of the MCU.

MORE…

EXCLUSIVE, Friday afternoon update: The Marvels is shaping up to be the lowest domestic opening ever for a Disney Marvel Cinematic Universe title, with a 3-day swing of $47M-$55M. That’s lower than Marvel/Universal’s The Incredible Hulk ($55.4M in 2008) and lower than Ant-Man ($57.2M, 2015).

Wait a second — what about Howard the Duck, which debuted to $5M in 1986? We’re talking about all those movies steered and produced by Kevin Feige, largely while he was producing Paramount and Disney Marvel movies (Incredible Hulk being in the canon, with cameos by Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr).

But more to the low openings for Marvel movies. There have been others outside Disney’s MCU, i.e. Sony/Marvel’s Morbius ($39M in 2022), 20th Century Fox’s 2015 Fantastic Four reboot ($25.6M), 1998’s Blade at $17M and Fox/Marvel’s Daredevil spinoff Elektra at $12.8M. Comparing The Marvels to those movies, it’s not the lowest ever for a feature Marvel adaptation.

Friday looks to be $21M-$22M, including previews, for the pic starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani. Hopefully, the last-minute stunting with stars back to work after the actors strike helps.

No. 2 belongs to third weekend of Universal/Blumhouse’s Peacock day-and-date title Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is at 3,691 theaters with $2.6M Friday and 3-day $7.8M, -59%, and $126M running total.

EXCLUSIVE, updated: Marvel Studios’ sequel, The Marvels, has clocked around $6.5M in Thursday night previews we hear from sources. Disney called the night at $6.6M for showtimes that began at 3PM yesterday.

The fear out there by many is that this $200M budgeted sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel –which stands as the highest grossing female superhero movie of all-time–could clock the lowest start ever stateside for a Marvel Studios movie; lower than The Incredible Hulk (which was a Universal release before Disney absorbed the MCU) which had a $55.4M start. While tracking took its projections down from $80M to $60M for The Marvels, there is a concern out there that The Marvels could see a $40M+ start.

At $6.5M that’s one of the lower previews we’ve seen in recent times from Marvel, just one notch above Ant-Man ($6.4M, $57.2M) and lower than Disney November misfires The Eternals ($9.5M previews, $71.2M opening) and Thor: Dark World ($7.1M previews, $85.7M). The Incredible Hulk has the lowest previews of $2M for an MCU title in the preview era, but that’s when previews began at midnight.

Advance ticket sales of $5M indicated The Marvels was flying into The Flash‘s territory opening wise. However, The Flash‘s preview figure was higher at $9.7M off showtimes that began at 3PM Thursday.

Critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are at 61% fresh, but the RT audience score is higher at 85% — which is promising, however, the die-hards always come out on Thursday night. Thursday night PostTrak exits from ComScore/Screen Engine were severe for general audiences at 3.5 stars, but 4 1/2 stars from parents and 5 stars from kids under 12. That said, kids and parents combined only repped 9% of last night’s audience. The Marvels skewed guys at 63% with men over 25 the biggest turnout at 45% and women over 25 at 24%. That latter demo gave the best recommendation grades of any demo at 61%.

There’s a cacophony of reasons why The Marvels isn’t playing to better levels, one of them being the recently ended actors strike which stifled the pic’s promotion at San Diego and NY Comic-Cons. In the last two days since the strike ended, the pic’s cast is in a whirlwind to show up on late night TV (Brie Larson set to appear on The Tonight Show tonight) and also show up at movie-theaters; Iman Vellani and director Nia DaCosta doing so yesterday at Hollywood’s El Captain.