The Marvels is not meeting expectations. Not only in critics, where the majority of specialized media agree that the feature film is worthy in many ways, but also at the box office, which is what matters most to Disney. In fact, the new “The House of Ideas” could have the worst start in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is not a minor issue.
According deadline, The Marvels is not generating enough interest, at least in the United States, the most important market for Disney worldwide. As of Friday, the estimated collection was just $21.5 million. For the weekend it was equally disappointing: between $47 and $52 million dollars.
If these figures are confirmed, The Marvels would be signing the worst premiere for a Marvel film in the North American country. And be careful, because the panorama in other countries seems to be just as worrying.
“By all accounts and all sources, it’s a disastrous result for a $200 million Marvel Studios movie.”
Five Nights at Freddy’swhich is still in theaters, has passed over The Marvels —considering only the premiere—. A few years ago, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was at its peak, this situation would have been impossible. Now, however, Marvel productions, both in film and television, are going through a very complicated stage.
In the case of The Marvels, not only has a disappointing premiere at the box office, but critics have also destroyed it. At the time of writing this post, it has a 62% recommendation rate on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, the audience rate rises to 85%—a common phenomenon on this platform.
In deadline They point out that another factor that could have caused an initial setback at the box office is the lack of promotion. The Marvels, like many other films, had to slow down its marketing strategy. The reason? The strikes of actors and scriptwriters, both of which ended recently, paralyzed any promotional event. Still, Disney had the opportunity to maneuver. Taking advantage, for example, of Comic-Con 2023 in San Diego, in which there was no advertising of The Marvels despite the large attendance of fans. Queer…
Finally, the ambition of Marvel Studios to unite, narratively speaking, television productions with films cannot be ignored. It is increasingly evident that many fans, for one reason or another, do not watch the series. Therefore, when a character introduced through Disney+ appears on the big screen, the audience is not enthusiastic about going to the movies. This is the case, of course, with Ms. Marvel.
Disney won’t wait to see how it performs The Marvels at the international box office to make decisions. In fact, they already took a very important one. In July of this same year, Bob Iger, director of Disney, announced that They will produce less Marvel content and Star Wars because the audience is no longer seeing them like before. The above, of course, is generating an economic problem for them. Therefore, their plan is to reduce investment in both franchises and prioritize quality instead of quantity.