‘The Marvels’ Global Box Office Struggles to Take Off

The Big Picture

• Disney’s The Marvels is expected to have the lowest-ever global gross in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with worryingly low figures in its domestic and worldwide opening weekend.
• The film’s underperformance can be attributed to mixed reviews, limited promotion during the SAG-AFTRA strike, and the lukewarm reception towards superhero cinema in general.
• Despite a budget of $250 million or more, The Marvels falls short in comparison to other recent MCU releases like Eternals and Shang-Chi, as well as DC’s The Flash, raising doubts about its future success at the box office.

There’s no spinning this; Disney’s The Marvels is going to have a tough time recovering its massive budget in its theatrical run, which, in all probability, will likely conclude with the lowest-ever global gross in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The 33rd overall film in the highest-grossing film franchise of all time delivered worryingly low figures both domestically and worldwide in its opening weekend.

The Marvels made $47 million in its stateside debut, a franchise-low, and added another $63 million from overseas territories, for a cumulative global opening of $110 million. This is significantly lower than the $455 million that 2019’s Captain Marvel grossed in its global opening. That film rode a wave of anticipation for Avengers: Endgame on its way to a $426 million domestic and $1.1 billion global lifetime haul.

But things have changed since then. While Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 all performed splendidly at the box office in the post-pandemic era, this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and last year’s Thor: Love and Thunder were considered to have underperformed. Combined with the lukewarm reception that several Disney+ MCU shows have been receiving, and the withering general sentiment towards superhero cinema, The Marvels was always going to face an uphill task.

‘The Marvels’ Faces an Uphill Battle at the Box Office

The mixed reviews and the recently concluded SAG-AFTRA strike certainly impacted the film’s performance, in addition to the dent that the MCU brand has taken recently. Stars Brie Larson and Iman Vellani only began promoting the movie a couple of days prior to its debut, once they received the all-clear after the strike ended. But by then, the reviews had already affected interest in the film. The Marvels currently sits at a 62% score on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and was awarded a franchise-low B CinemaScore from opening day audiences. This doesn’t bode well for its future, especially considering the $250 million-plus that it is said to have cost.

Even mid-pandemic releases Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings performed better in their respective global debuts. While the poorly-reviewed Eternals made $162 million worldwide, the more conventional Shang-Chi grossed $140 million globally in its first weekend. The Marvels also fell short of the $139 million that DC’s notorious bomb The Flash made in its global debut, before ending its theatrical run with $270 million. Is that a realistic ceiling for The Marvels? The current all-time low for the MCU is The Incredible Hulk, which was released by Universal back in 2008, and grossed only $265 million globally in its lifetime run.

Directed by Nia DaCosta, The Marvels also stars Teyonah Parris, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, and Samuel L. Jackson. You can watch the film in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

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