Something has happened over the past few years: the once mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen a stumble in both its box office dollars and its quality of films. It seems like anything post Avengers: Endgame has failed to kickstart a true second coming of the brand. Spider-Man: No Way Home played on the nostalgia kick of combining three Spider-man universes into one and came at a time when audiences really yearned for something familiar, propelling it to a solid $1.9 Billion worldwide, but that is the exception. Most people agree that Marvel just hasn’t hit the same highs it used to creatively.
This weekend sees the MCU bring its latest film to the big screen with the sort of sequel to Captain Marvel and sort of big screen version of the Disney+ show Ms. Marvel. If early reactions to the film are any indication, this is not the one that restores the MCU to its prior glory. The review embargo lifted yesterday at noon, and in just 24 hours, the film has a rotten score, with many saying pretty succinctly the movie just isn’t very good. Our own Alex Maidy called the film “disposable” in his 6/10 review, and I think that is where we are with this universe since Endgame, every movie has felt like it just didn’t matter.
I never watched Ms. Marvel, which is where Marvel may have messed up. Because I have never watched that show, and the trailers have relied heavily on showing that Iman Vellani is the main star of this film, I feel like I will be lost if I see this movie without ever having seen Ms. Marvel. But audiences may be having that feeling of not being able to keep up with all things Marvel, and that is starting to hurt their box office. Right now, The Marvels is tracking to have one of the lowest openings in the entire MCU, with just around $60 million. To put that into perspective, Captain Marvel opened with $153.4 million in 2019.
The lack of competition should help this one, but I still think The Marvels comes in light with around $55 million which would put it in competition with 2008’s The Incredible Hulk for the lowest MCU opening weekend (the Edward Norton fronted Incredible Hulk opened with $55.4 million, while Ant-Man opened with $57.2 million in 2015. Anything under a $65 million debut would see The Marvels in the top 3 worst openings ever for an MCU film.)
Second place will be a shootout between Taylor Swift and some murderous animatronics as The Eras tour continues its record-breaking run. At the same time, Five Nights at Freddy’s will likely see another significant drop. The difference between the two will be less than $500,000, but I think Freddy’s does have the edge simply because it is newer. Look for a drop of around 60% for a $7.5 million weekend, while Swift will likely see a $7 million weekend.
There is another new release in the market this week: the Sony Pictures/ Affirm faith-based title Journey To Bethlehem. We have seen Angel Studios hold a monopoly with their faith-based titles, and while I don’t think Bethlehem will hit the same highs as Sound of Freedom, I think there is enough fandom out there for these faith-based titles to crack the top five with around $4 million.
The remainder of the weekend box office will be your holdover titles, such as Killers of the Flower Moon and The Holdovers! The Alexander Payne-directed film has seen some of the best reviews of any movie this year (including a 10/10 from Chris Bumbray). Miramax opted for the slow rollout of this one, with it debuting two weeks ago in just six theaters to an impressive $35,082 per screen average. This weekend, it hits around 900 theaters and should see a healthy take between $2-$3 million. Of course, now that the SAG-Aftra strike is over, Awards season can truly begin, and we will see the stars of this one out in full bloom to promote this film, and it should be able to ride that wave to some healthy week-to-week box office dollars.
Are you planning on checking out The Marvels this weekend or has the MCU grown a bit stale to you? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to check back with us on Saturday when we have a brief update on the box office numbers.
TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS