Box Office Bomb: ‘The Marvels’ Opening to $47M-$52M in New Low for Marvel Studios

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The movie's performance fuels the theory that superhero fatigue is a real thing if a pic doesn't deliver on every front.

The Marvels is anything but marvelous so far at the box office.

Based on Friday earnings of $21.5 million, the Marvel Studios and Disney superhero tentpole is headed for a domestic opening of $47 million to $52 million to rank as the worst start in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Marvels marks a new low for Kevin Feige‘s Marvel Studios, which for years was unrivaled in its success, and bolsters the theory that superhero fatigue is a real thing as fanboys grow weary of a glut of titles and are far less forgiving.

Until now, rival DC was the superhero studio that endured the biggest ups and downs, with a good number of its films opening to $50 million or less (in comparison, many MCU releases started with $100 million or more domestically). This summer, DC’s The Flash debuted to a dismal $55 million domestically on its way to topping out at a paltry $270.6 million globally.

Word of mouth is already hurting The Marvels, which is only the third MCU title to receive a B CinemaScore from audiences after Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania. The vast majority of MCU releases have earned some variation of an A. Its Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of 62 percent is likewise on the lower end.

The 33rd installment in the MCU is a sequel to the 2019 Brie Larson starrer Captain Marvel, which opened to $153.4 million in North America on its way to earning a massive $1.13 billion worldwide, not adjusted for inflation. That movie had a clear advantage in that it was teased in the post-credit scene of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, while its titular star was a player in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame (it was released between the two Marvel mega-blockbusters).

To date, 2008’s The Incredible Hulk holds the record for the lowest domestic opening of any MCU title at $55.4 million, not adjusted for inflation (Marvel, which wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, partnered with Universal for Hulk). The next lowest MCU opening belongs to Marvel/Disney’s Ant-Man, which started with $57.2 million domestically in 2015.

In the new movie, Larson is joined by Iman Vellani, the breakout star of the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, as well as Teyonah Parris as the grown-up version of Captain Marvel character Monica Rambeau. The actor made her Marvel debut with WandaVision, which counted The Marvels screenwriter Megan McDonnell among its writers.

The Marvels is unique for a superhero film in that it stars three female leads. It was directed by Nia DaCosta, who is the first Black woman to direct a Marvel Studios movie, as well as the youngest director of an MCU film (DaCosta turns 34 on Nov. . Marvel has taken pride in fostering such indie directors as Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi and Chloé Zhao.

The cast of The Marvels wasn’t able to do any promotion or publicity because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, although Larson and her co-stars sprung into action Thursday after the strike ended. Larson appeared on The Tonight Show on Friday, while she and her co-stars will surprise fans at various screenings of the movie in New York City.

Overseas, The Marvels is pacing to open to $60 million for a global start of $140 million, compared to nearly $190 million for Captain Marvel.

 

[ConsentAccidentVictimNo98]

I don’t think they could even begin to make it work even in a screenplay.
I’d love to have a good director maybe a movie or even better mini series of the punisher story „the slavers“.

Honestly just use the multiverse as an excuse to set him up as being the antagonist of the kang dynasty. Get rid of Kang by having him just kill them all at the start, and use it as an excuse to do the punisher storyline. It would have to be way too kamp but it could work. Work to intertwine it as a fucked up revenge story of him wanting to constantly get revenge. Yes, ik very :autistic:

The constant decline of this Franchise makes me glad I stopped back at Infinity War

Yeah, the ending of infinity war should have been the end really. Not everything needs to have a happy ending. I mean sure, I am not a big fan of infinity war and it is over rated with bloated fights (I despise the Wakanda fight up until Thanos appears. Just a useless cgi fight, no real character shit.).

 

[MosBodacious]

An actual line from the movie: "Use Black Girl Magic!"

Fuck this movie.

+3 Fatherless children tokens are placed onto the field. Search your deck for 2-3 Baby Daddy cards and summon them in defensive position.

 

[Positron]

Black Girl Magic.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I don't think women are incapable of portraying stoicism, I just think that most modern writers, producers, and directors that get attached to these capeshit genre films simply don't know what the fuck stoicism looks like (see the painfully dull performances by all the lead actresses in the live action Star Wars Ahsoka series, for example).

I know it's a running gag that no one in comics stays dead forever, but seriously? Just one or two months? In comic book terms that translates to one or two issues. I'm pretty sure it was at least a year after Marvel "killed" Tony Stark in Civil War 2 before they brought him back.

they waited a while to bring tony back in a flesh and blood body. iirc, we had a hologram AI tony that was a clone of his brain.

Way back when the first Captain Marvel movie was about to come out, some people suggested that the best way to end the movie would be for Brie, after fighting a heroic and exhausting battle to stop the bad guys, crashes into the middle of some city street, where in an awesome little cameo a random civilian played by Anna Pacquin comes by, grabs her by the hand while asking if she was all right, after which Captain Marvel falls into a coma.

Cheesy and an obvious fanboy callback and reference on multiple levels, sure, but it would've probably been epic and moving, and would've also explained where the hell she'd been for the past 30 years or so while everything else had been taking place in the MCU and she'd never once been mentioned. And then at the after credits sequence, where everything is going to hell during the events of the "Snap" from Inifinity War, we cut to her still in a coma in a hospital...and suddenly her eyes snap open.

one of the things I was kinda hoping for was some kinda use of Carol as the ultimate nick fury secret warrior. We had Daisy and the shield agents, what if Carol was a big time secret one tucked away.

the lack of using coulson, quake, or anything like that kinda sucks but ah well.

 

[Echo_Ender]

What the fuck happened? Were they afraid she would upstage Brie Larson or did the actress just put on a ton of weight in a desperate attempt to escape from being cast in this dumpster fire?

 

[TowinKarz]

I forget what thread I first mentioned it in, maybe one about this film pre-release? But, the major problem with it is the "dot" representing it's core audience is residing where multiple circles representing different kinds of audience fatigue are all intersecting.

Capeshit Fatigue - 30 superhero films are enough already

Sequel Fatigue - Its gone far beyond mere sequels to the point that we now have films-as-service, where nothing ends, nothing fits into a definitive arc, film 45 only exists to set up film 46 and each installment is treated as a hot new DLC drop instead of a self-contained story.

Multiverse Fatigue - And if the sequels don't do it? There's always the "Oops! That was an alternate dimension! Reboot!" button, people aren't going to buy in and watch 5 installments of a franchise that might self-delete it's own canonicity tomorrow. There's no payoff for being a completionist.

IP Fatigue - Spreading heroes across not only different films but into games and streaming services so you have to do "homework" if you want to understand what's going on, coupled with the fact it's all happening under a dangling Sword of Damocles that could bring the universal reboot at any second means people aren't emotionally invested.

Bad Writing Fatigue - The plot holes and unexplained contrivances only seem worse now, partly because of all the other concurrent issues, but on it's own? The writing these days STINKS and people have had enough "witty" jokes and cringe to last a lifetime.

Special Effects Fatigue - I feel like I'm on the verge of a seizure when watching a modern film, and I'm not even epileptic. Seems every moment of film without bad dialogue is stuff blowing up, badly, in poor-quality CGI. It's like living next door to a noisy neighbor with a cranked stereo. No time to let the audience digest what might have just been said, here's another rainbow explosion!

Girlboss Fatigue - Raise a hand if you're tired of overpowered POC wahmen heroes out to smash the patriarchy and prove they can be just as good if not better than any man? Well, this movie's got THREE of them!

Woke Fatigue - Gotta insert that approved political messaging in everything to remind the audience that they cannot rest during the culture wars, less they be executed for cowardice, tick-box casting, tick-box characters, tick-box dialogue, it's transparent to the point you can hear the big felt tip marker "squeak' on a whiteboard at various points in the trailers/films as another mandated diversity point is checked off.

Putting the "Act" in "Activism" Fatigue - Stars have always been manufactured in Hollywood, but, never before has the machine failed to make a likable one that isn't an in-your-face proponent of politics that probably are actively hurting the same people that they expect to drop $80 for the privilege of seeing it across three platforms.

And on and on it goes.



You could fix the bad writing, you could spruce up the VFX, you could recast Brie Larson, but it STILL wouldn't improve the movie's fortunes because even after taking away 3 issues, there's a good 5 left.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

A Lightbringer adaptation would save the MCU.

 

[Android raptor]

At this point I'm pretty sure even normies are getting burnt out on MCU.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

What was worse was when they showed Captain Marvel's 'hardships" that made her a girlboss. Her incredible power was: "Standing back up."

THIS shit

was supposed to be equal to this:

Was there someone driving their fucking fist into her skull? Were three big fucking Kree stomping her in an alley? Was she facing off against a big purple dude three times her size? Was she surrounded by Nazis?

Hell, did it even show her being shot down over Iraq or Afghanistan and getting back to her feet after having two goat fuckers beat her skull in with a rock?

No.

Bicycle. Some shit on the beach. T-ball. Basic Training. Flight training. Oh, the crash? Yeah, peace time test flight.

Who is she being defiant against? Who is she defying? Who is the stronger/more numerous foe that her standing up shows her defiance, her willpower, her inner strength?

There isn't one.

"Believe in yourself and you go girl!" is the bit, with the most basic boring bitch "struggles" anyone has ever seen.

Newsflash: ALL Drill Instructors tell you that you're useless, worthless, and don't belong in the military when you're in Basic. Hell, she wasn't even called a snail trail or told to go back to sucking dick in a trailer park. She just fell during the obstacle course that everyone runs and a LOT of people eat shit on.

It's literally THIS the movie:



There's the problem with Captain Marvel.

She doesn't earn shit. Even her training with the magical space aliens was about controlling her powers, and the end bit was just "You can't beat me without your powers" to which she just blasts him. Proving him right.

It made the character unlikable.

 

[God of Nothing]

What was worse was when they showed Captain Marvel's 'hardships" that made her a girlboss. Her incredible power was: "Standing back up."

THIS shit

was supposed to be equal to this:

Was there someone driving their fucking fist into her skull? Were three big fucking Kree stomping her in an alley? Was she facing off against a big purple dude three times her size? Was she surrounded by Nazis?

Hell, did it even show her being shot down over Iraq or Afghanistan and getting back to her feet after having two goat fuckers beat her skull in with a rock?

No.

Bicycle. Some shit on the beach. T-ball. Basic Training. Flight training. Oh, the crash? Yeah, peace time test flight.

There's the problem with Captain Marvel.

She doesn't earn shit. Even her training with the magical space aliens was about controlling her powers, and the end bit was just "You can't beat me without your powers" to which she just blasts him. Proving him right.

It made the character unlikable.

she's an affirmative action hire, johnny

 

[Back me up!]

What the fuck happened? Were they afraid she would upstage Brie Larson or did the actress just put on a ton of weight in a desperate attempt to escape from being cast in this dumpster fire?

I'm seeing this more and more from minority actors ( Andy Allo from Upload got fat as well). I think Hollywood doesn't have the balls to tell the hoes to keep it tight anymore and just let's it slide for the brown/black girls. White girls still have to keep it fit.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

It's unlikely that anyone will ever be interested in that shit outside of a tiny niche audience, no matter how well it's done. I say this as someone who actually enjoys a lot of capeshit. There is a HUGE void between the type of plotlines you are describing, and the movies that made the MCU succeed.

Let's look at some of the movies that established the MCU:

Iron Man: cool guy in a robot suit that fights real-world bad guys!

Captain America: cool guy with superpowers who fights Hitler stand-ins!

Thor: a god who comes to Earth and fights alongside humans just like you and me!!!

Now, can you sum up the "Gatherers" in a way that makes anyone gives a shit? Look at this description:

The last of their reality, the Gatherers are a team of former Avengers of various alternate realities who survived their world's destruction. Tricked into believing that their world's Sersi was to blame, Proctor united them in their common hatred, giving them a foe, the "prime" Sersi of Earth-616. But for them to carry out their vengeance, each member had to kill their Earth-616 counterpart (an act called "gathering") within a certain amount of time or face a cellular breakdown that would cause their deaths. Unknown to the members of the Gatherers, their leader Proctor was responsible for each world's destruction as he drove that world's Sersi into madness, causing her to lash out and destroy everything around her.

I fell asleep halfway through reading that and like I said, I am the type of loser who likes capeshit. Why the fuck do I care about some retards from an alternate universe who were tricked by some other retard? MCU worked partly because it put comic book stuff firmly in our own world (without trying too hard to make it 'dark' and 'gritty' like DC movies did). You got the amusing juxtaposition of superheros fighting in a real city with people who look like you and me, which gave us a built-in reason to care about what happened. Without that... why the fuck do I care about some random superheroes and their alternative universe?

(Obviously there are exceptions, like Guardians of the Galaxy and some of the later Thor movies, but they generally made up for it by establishing good audience stand-ins and/or being very funny, and even then they probably only succeeded because it was the height of the MCU.)

Same applies to The Marvels. I actually enjoyed the Captain Marvel movie (like I said, I am a retard capeshit enjoyer). But it was enjoyable because it put Captain Marvel (a strange alien) in a human world, and gave us Nick Fury as an audience stand-in. This movie looks like it takes Captain Marvel (still an alien, for all intents and purposes) and teams her up with other superheroes... in space?

Again, why the fuck do I care?

The Gatherers would probably just be "AU Avengers from a timeline where everything got fucked up, being manipulated by a mad Avenger." if they were to try and do something resembling it.

The more I think about that, it just sounds like something for a show, at best. Not a movie. Maybe a group of counterparts from ruined universes come together. But then they'd need to use the core recognizable avengers like tony, steve, and bruce for that to work in the films. Honestly it sounds like I'm going way off script here. Maybe in the Secret Wars movie we're looking forward to, they could have a villain group that's just evil/broken versions of the core heroes from worlds where everything went wrong if they're adapting the 2016 event.

I got no idea what they were thinking trying to make Captain Marvel a girlboss.


Guardians worked well but I think that was also James Gunn just knowing how to make things fun.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

I am curious what we will see as the 'next' cash cow style of cinema.

I'm only half kidding. Sooner or later Hollywood will find out that they can cash in on the anime craze by doing actual big budget non bullshit live action movies. But probably rather later than sooner.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

she's an affirmative action hire, johnny

Oh, without a doubt.

You just know she's been coddled and catered too the whole time.

Being a pilot isn't that fucking impressive. For the most part pilots are prima-donna faggots. This isn't back in the day when test pilots were risking it all, flying with a cracked rib, startled to find out that time went slower for them. Fuck, it isn't even back in the day when you'd talk to pilots in Europe who knew that they'd get one, maybe two if they're very very lucky, airstrikes or shoot down one or two MiGs before they got blown out of the fucking sky and they embraced their low life expectancy. Hell, she wasn't even doing what Maverick did at the beginning of the new Top Gun movie.

No, it's testing new engines.

Seeing her basic bitch 'struggles' being treated like some big fucking deal let you know that of course she was handed ultimate power. She's fucking worthless, and people like her ALWAYS end up with mind blowing power and tell themselves it was their struggles that did it.

 

[Tanner Glass]

It's not really burn out on the MCU - it's still a really solid IP. It's burnout on garbage.

One of the things that the early MCU had was better story writing and much smaller and relatable, scales. The whole "ENTIRE UNIVERSE HANGS IN THE BALANCE" stuff was relegated to the 'Avengers' movies - and not even all of them were huge scales conflicts.

When people think of momets they enjoy, it's usually a smaller scale character interaction. Ironman and Spiderman, Ironman and Captain American, Thanos and anyone, Thor and Loki, and so on. It's not about the huge scales or stakes - sometimes a solid interaction is just a conflict between two characters who have an interpersonal issue.

The new MCU thinks "higher stakes" means "better movie" when the bigger steaks are just washing out any character building they could be doing instead.

What the fuck happened? Were they afraid she would upstage Brie Larson or did the actress just put on a ton of weight in a desperate attempt to escape from being cast in this dumpster fire?

What the fuck happened was much more likely just poor planning on Disney's part. The poor project management had the actress on ice for like 4 years. They probably just fucked up her "we spend 9 months getting you in shape" regiment. If they were going do it at all.

Which is a thing they just stopped doing apparently - most of the modern heroes just look like normal people wearing cosplay. It's weird that Iron Man was more jacked than Captain Marvel was.

 

[Not A Bunny]

There's another problem that nobody seems to be talking about.

Marvel was a mostly heterogeneous property going into Endgame.

Yes, it was getting boring, but you can't enforce the notion that you have to consume every bit of the IP in order to "get" team-up movies unless it's all for the intended audience.

And even worse than that: Marvel was creating properties out of different genres that attracted different audiences. Ms. Marvel was for teens, WandaVision was closer to the audience for the Marvel movies, but Monica Rambeau might have had the single stupidest line in all of Marvel - making her thoroughly unrelatable, She-Hulk (while not related to this) was intended to attract comedy watchers, but it reflects a big part of the problem.

You can't tell people that they need to consume every part of the IP when you're generating content that maybe people who are interested in capeshit aren't interested in watching.

Ms. Marvel, for instance, was apparently not for anyone but teenage girls, so, how do you tell movie audiences that a character that wasn't marketed to them should be an interesting onscreen presence for them to care about (which gets even weirder when reports are overwhelming that the actress is the "best part" of the movie).

One more thing: does Brie Larson have it in her contract that if she's in a Captain Marvel-centric performance, that she needs to be singing on screen? (because as I understand it, having seen neither Captain Marvel movie, she sings in both). I'm not sure if that's a girl thing or a Brie Larson thing, but female-centric properties of all kinds seem to jam in a musical number for the leads, but that's a separate rant for a a separate thread.

 

[AnimeGirlConnoisseur]

For those of you who are curious, the budget for this film was $274.8 million. I wonder if global sales will be enough to hit that number.

 

[frozen_runner]

make a movie about Michael LeRois, the Shadow Man.

Fuck yes.

Granted, Laurence Fishburn is too old now to play the role (which was made for him), but... directly into my veins. People shit on Acclaim, but they came up with some bomb-ass shit occasionally.

 

[mlanguishi]

For those of you who are curious, the budget for this film was $274.8 million. I wonder if global sales will be enough to hit that number.

It'll be tough to hit that for sure. Considering the theater take of 50% and the marketing budget which is probably 150m+, it'll be a major financial dud. Maybe not as bad as Indy 5 though.

 

[God of Nothing]

For those of you who are curious, the budget for this film was $274.8 million. I wonder if global sales will be enough to hit that number.

the rat bleeds more
'tis a good day