Disney’s (DIS) Marvel Cinematic Universe has been nigh unbeatable for more than a decade.
The MCU regularly trumps nearly anything that its main rival, Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) DC Universe, puts out. Even its more so-so films, like last year’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” regularly haul in hundreds of millions and become one of the most profitable films of the year.
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Marvel’s only real competition is the Star Wars franchise, but those properties are both owned by Disney so it doesn’t really count.
Onlookers, and perhaps people who are getting a bit tired of Marvel’s continued cultural dominance (which some people think crowds out room for films not based on existing intellectual property and more original fare), have often wondered what it would take to dethrone Marvel.
Universal Pictures
What Beat Out 'Ant-Man'?
But Marvel's recent film has been overtaken by an unlikely rival. It turns out, the one thing that can beat out "Ant Man" is…a bear whacked out of its mind on cocaine.
Last weekend the absurd action comedy “Cocaine Bear,” pulled in $32.2 million in ticket sales in U.S. and Canadian theaters, beating out the much more expensive “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which tumbled from its opening weekend total of $120.4 million to $32.2 million, a 69.7% drop.
Directed by Elizabeth Banks and produced by Universal Pictures, “Cocaine Bear” is about exactly what it sounds like, and according to critics, offers up the exact sort of b-movie fun the title implies.
(The film also features Keri Russell, Margo Martindale and Matthew Rhys, so therefore it may qualify as a stealth sequel to “The Americans.”)
Loosely based on a real incident from the ‘80s in which a bear ate duffel bag of cocaine that had been dropped from a plane, the film offered a combination of an instantly memorable title and hook, and arguably filled a gap in the marketplace, as there hasn’t been an outrageous comedy that opened in the theaters in quite a while. (At the moment, everything is either an Oscar film or a superhero film.)
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe is probably going to be just fine, the success of “Cocaine Bear” does prove the haters’ point. We need more than just franchise fare these days, and there’s a hunger for original content. And say what you will about “Cocaine Bear,” you can’t say it's not original.
But, of course, Hollywood being what it is, this could easily mark the beginning of yet another cinematic universe. “Cocaine Bear 2: Still on Cocaine,” anyone?
