The Marvels Is On Track For One Of The MCU's Lowest Box Office Openings
"The Marvels" is not getting off to a heroic start at the box office. The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a sequel to 2019's massive hit "Captain Marvel," arrived in theaters on Thursday and, while it's early, the numbers are not encouraging. Based on what the film took in during preview screenings, it now looks like director Nia DaCosta's superhero blockbuster is going to wind up with one of the smallest opening weekends in the history of the MCU. Brace for impact.
With showings that started at 3 p.m., "The Marvels" took in $6.6 million in Thursday preview screenings, per The Numbers. Much could happen between now and Monday morning but those numbers suggest an opening weekend well below original projections, likely in the mid-$50 million range, give or take. Early box office tracking had the film earning as much as $90 million on opening weekend. Even in a best-case scenario at this point, the movie will end up opening nowhere near that.
The lowest opening weekends in MCU history belong to 2008's "The Incredible Hulk" ($55.4 million), 2015's "Ant-Man" ($57.2 million), and 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger" ($65 million). It's been quite some time since we've seen a film in this franchise open below $60 million. Even all of the films released in 2021 — "Black Widow," "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," and "Eternals" — opened above $70 million, and that was when the pandemic was a much larger factor. This is to say, things are not looking good for "The Marvels," particularly in light of the film's sizable budget, which is said to be between $220 and $250 million.
On the optimistic front, "The First Avenger" only did $4 million in previews before opening to $65 million. But that was a long time ago. We can also look at something like "The Flash," which did $9.7 million in previews over the summer but opened to just $55 million. The film ended up topping out at an abysmal $268 million worldwide.
Marvel Studios needs to take a breather
Even in the most optimistic scenario, an over/under $60 million domestic opening for a movie with a budget well north of $200 million is not good. International ticket sales appear to be similarly soft, with the overseas debut expected to be in the $80 million range.
"Captain Marvel" opened to $153.4 million back in 2019 en route to a massive $1.12 billion global finish, well above what anyone had predicted. The film benefited greatly from coming out just a handful of weeks before "Avengers: Endgame" at the peak of MCU fever. That's not the case this time around. It certainly doesn't help that reviews have been a bit mixed (read our review here). It also doesn't help that the MCU has expanded with shows on Disney+. To that end, the "Loki" season 2 finale aired Thursday as well. It may just be a case of quantity over quality. That's not to say each movie and show doesn't have its fans, but it's hard to ignore reviews for films like "Quantumania" or shows like "Secret Invasion."
Fortunately, it looks like Marvel Studios is going to get a bit of a break to try and right the ship. After Disney announced a slew of release date delays recently, "Deadpool 3" will be the only MCU movie to hit theaters in 2024. That could give audiences a bit of a break and give the studio time to retool behind the scenes. That feels necessary right now.
The cast for the film includes Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Seo-Jun Park, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, and Samuel L. Jackson. Nia DaCosta also wrote the screenplay alongside Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik, and Zeb Wells
"The Marvels" is in theaters now.