It took over a month, butThe Marvelshas now passed perhaps its final milestone at the global box office. The film’s commercial performance has been seen as a huge dent in theMarvel Cinematic Universe’s armor, which, over a decade and a half, had established itself as an entire generation’s favorite movie franchise. But the post-pandemic era proved to be its undoing, with the audience experiencing a clear case of over-saturation.
Not only didThe Marvelsregister the lowest-ever opening in the franchise’s 15-year history — lower even than 2008’s largely overlookedThe Incredible Hulk— the superhero sequel will also become the first MCU movie ever to conclude its domestic box office run with under $100 million, which is a figure that most MCU movies used to routinely cross in their opening weekends alone. The film’s current domestic gross stands at just $83 million, while its overseas figures have stalled at under $120 million. Combined,The Marvelshas generated $202 million worldwide.
For context, this is around $60 million short of whatThe Incredible Hulkconcluded its global run with in 2008, and roughly $150 million shy of whatAvengers: Endgamemade in its first three days of release. Just in North America. It’s also around $70 million less than what rival DC’sThe Flashmade over the course of its theatrical run, before effectively ending that franchise. While some are still holding out hope forAquaman and the Lost Kingdom, it’s clear that 2023 will be seen as the year that superhero cinema witnessed a seismic shift in popularity.
Lowest Grossing MCU Movies Worldwide
Current Global Gross
The Marvels
$202 million
The Incredible Hulk
$265 million
Captain America: The First Avenger
$370 million
Black Widow
$379 million
$401 million
‘The Marvels’ Was Largely Affected by Superhero Fatigue
A lot of it can be blamed on Disney’s strategy during the pandemic. The studio doubled down on its streaming output, thereby producing a string of exorbitantly priced but creatively underwhelming shows that did nothing but leave a sour taste in the audience’s mouth and acceleratesuperhero fatigue. The writing had been on the wall ever sinceAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaopened topoor reviewsand tapped out with just under $500 million globally earlier this year. At the time, that was considered to be the absolute bottom-line for what these movies should be doing, and now,The Marvelsis basically about to end its run with less than half of that number.
Directed byNia DaCostaand starringBrie Larson,Teyonah Parris,Iman VellaniandZawe Ashton, the movie cost a reported $274 million to produce, which definitely complicates matters. Going by the general rule-of-thumb,The Marvelswould’ve had to gross at least $600 million worldwide to break even. That would’ve still been seen as a disappointment, considering the $1.1 billion that 2019’sCaptain Marvelgenerated in its theatrical run. It remains to be seen if the movie will find new life when it hits streaming. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Carol Danvers gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, forcing them to work together to save the universe.
