The Marvels Box Office Goes From Bad To Worse With Catastrophic Second Weekend Drop
As "The Hunger Games" franchise makes a big for a comeback with prequel movie "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes," the Marvel Cinematic Universe's woes continue. After setting a new franchise low last weekend with a $46.1 million debut, cosmic team-up movie "The Marvels" is set to earn just $9-10 million at the domestic box office in its second weekend, a drop in the range of 78-80% (per The Hollywood Reporter).
It'll be the second MCU movie this year to set a new franchise record for biggest sophomore drop, after "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" fell off 69.9% in its second weekend. The one bright spot for Marvel this year is "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," which dropped just 47.6% and went on to gross $845 million worldwide.
We've covered the myriad reasons why "The Marvels" is struggling so much at the box office elsewhere, but this weekend adds a new reason into the mix: competition. "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" easily took the No. 1 spot, and Deadline reports that a massive 75% of the opening night audience was aged 18-34, with women making up 65% of the crowd. Those are two major target audiences for "The Marvels," a superhero movie with three female leads. It's safe to speculate that a lot of people in those "The Hunger Games" showings might otherwise have seen "The Marvels" this weekend.
As if "Songbirds & Snakes" drawing away young adult audiences wasn't tough enough, "Trolls Band Together" also arrived on the scene to tempt younger kids. It easily landed second place with an estimated opening weekend of $30 million, and received an "A" CinemaScore from audience exit polling. "The Marvels," meanwhile, is currently fighting Eli Roth's new horror movie "Thanksgiving" for the No. 3 spot.
The Thanksgiving Thunderdome
Speaking of Thanksgiving, we're heading into a real Thunderdome as studios send their best fighters for a piece of the Thanksgiving box office pie. On top of all the movies mentioned above, "The Marvels" will soon be facing competition from Disney's animated musical "Wish" and Ridley Scott's historical epic "Napoleon," both set to release on Wednesday, November 22.
Aside from "Trolls Band Together," which opened a few weeks ago in most major international markets, all of these movies will also be competing with one another at the international box office, without the benefit of the Turkey Day ticket sales boost. Including foreign box office, "The Marvels" reached a global total of $110 million, a fraction of the $455 million worldwide debut enjoyed by "Captain Marvel." Variety reports that "The Marvels" is looking at a ten-day domestic total of $64 million, and even with the international box office added to that, it'll finish the weekend considerably short of recouping even the $220 production budget, let alone the costs of marketing and distribution.
The only silver lining for Marvel Studios is that it now has a long runway to try and get things back on track. The only MCU release scheduled for 2024 is "Deadpool 3," which, like "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," has a lot of built-in fan anticipation that exists independently from the broader MCU hype. But "Captain America: Brave New World" has more in common with "The Marvels," being effectively a sequel to a Disney+ series. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige might need an Infinity Gauntlet to sort this out.