It had been coming. The Marvel Cinematic Universe – the superhero franchise that has dominated the box office for the better part of 15 years – is crashing back down to Earth. It’s spent the past few years drifting out of its lucrative orbit, mind you; ever since 2019’s cathartic crossover film Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has struggled to curry consistent interest in its ever-ballooning catalogue of films and TV series. The latest film, The Marvels, is a sequel to Captain Marvel, which grossed over $1.1bn globally. This follow-up has opened at just $47m (£38.4m) – the lowest opening weekend for any MCU film, losing even to 2008’s execrable Incredible Hulk.
The Marvels follows a slew of other recent MCU releases that have underperformed, both critically and commercially. This year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 did fine – raking in around $845m globally. But the critically reviled Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania took in just $476.1m. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made $859.2m – around half a billion dollars less than the original Black Panther. The streaming side, meanwhile, has fared even worse, with Disney+ series such as Loki, Hawkeye and Secret Invasion failing to make any impact on the wider cultural conversation. In a recent report on the “crisis” at Marvel Studios, Variety’s Tatiana Siegel runaway budgets – individual episodes of She-Hulk reportedly cost $25m apiece – an over-saturation of content, and the legal issues surrounding Jonathan Majors, the actor who’d been positioned as the franchise’s big villain for the next few years. For these reasons and more, it’s clear the MCU is in dark and uncharted waters. But reports of its impending demise are overstated. What actually lies in store is more complicated than that.
