Cognition Dissemination: The Marvels’ Failure Is Bad News

The fate of Marvel Studios’ The Marvels at the box office appeared dire for several weeks. Estimates provided nearly one month ahead of its theatrical opening mentioned its low early ticket sales, well below even noted disappointment Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania from earlier this year. Marvel and parent company Disney clearly realized this when the promotional campaign switched gears to focus less on the trio of female lead superheroes and instead on how the movie starred a former Avenger from box office behemoth Avengers: Endgame. It was a truly desperate act considering Captain Marvel’s minimal role in that movie, yet the effort was for naught.

The Marvels officially opened with $47 million at the United States’ box office for the three-day weekend, taking the crown from The Incredible Hulk to become the lowest opener for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film ever. The worldwide box office gross didn’t save it, bringing in only a total of $110 million. Any chance of a recovery on par with Pixar’s Elemental is very low given the mixed word of mouth, with the low $2.4 million the movie grossed on Monday foretelling certain doom (though not *a* certain Doom). The movie at least avoided the fate of coming in lower than the memetic Morbius, but that’s not much of an achievement. Considering this movie’s reportedly massive $274 million budget, it’s sure to be a staggering financial loss for Disney.

There are several reasons for why this happened. The superhero genre has seen few successes in theaters all year. The “fun” started with the aforementioned underwhelming Quantumania. Not to mention all the DC movies, including Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle, which all bombed, and chances are Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will join them. But the failures mean much more for Marvel and Disney than DC and Warner Bros. thanks to a reboot for the DC movie universe being in the works, set to start with Superman: Legacy in summer 2025. Marvel Studios is particularly reeling.

The lone successes this year belong to the superlative Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, though the former was bittersweet. Guardians was directed by James Gunn, the very man co-helming the upcoming DC Universe reboot alongside Peter Safran. Loki season 2 also appears to have done well, with its finale being the second highest rated one on Disney Plus this year — coming in just below The Mandalorian’s third season. Those are small shimmers in what’s a dark time for Marvel, and Disney by extension.

There are clear reasons for why the Marvel brand is having problems right now, with an audience growing tired of the traditional heavily green-screened superhero film. The Marvels very much represents this, with reviews describing its rudimentary progression and another underwhelming villain. (I say reviews because — sorry! — I haven’t seen it yet.) There’s plenty of evidence that this particular brand of superhero fatigue is setting in for the mass audience, to no surprise.

At the rate new content was being provided, with three-to-four movies and three-to-four shows each year, the audience was bound to get sick of all this eventually. The inconsistent quality didn’t help, with Thor: Love & Thunder, Quantumania, and especially Secret Invasion (which continues a portion of the story from Captain Marvel) all coming up short. The Marvels is an unfortunate victim in this regard.

This movie’s failure was always going to activate the internet’s biggest losers. It didn’t fail because it was “woke” and contained too much diversity, and anyone thinking so should be pointed right in Barbie’s direction. Not that you should. It’s a great magic trick on the part of internet chuds to fool people into thinking they have power, and they’re too up their own asses to argue with. The more pressing concern is whether the heads of the companies are listening to them.

The chance of The Marvels putting female-led superhero films and those with diverse leads on ice is higher than it should be — the biggest emphasis on the former. This brand of superhero film is simply “been there; done that” now. Not helping is how Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel herself was shoved into this trio despite having little opportunity for prior character development, and needed at least one more solo film before this arrived. (This also applies to Monica Rambeau to a lesser extent.) Books and features can be written describing the worst decisions Hollywood companies have made, and this could join them. Just as there were other reasons for Catwoman and Elektra failing (like, you know, the quality), there are other clear reasons for why The Marvels failed.

It’s just a damned shame that this movie had to suffer for this fatigue and questionable planning that’s been months in the making, because no one involved with the film deserved this. It’s especially brutal for Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan actress Iman Vellani, considering both this movie’s fate and how the Ms. Marvel series was the lowest-watched Marvel show on Disney Plus (airing it alongside Obi-Wan didn’t help). Someone this passionate about Marvel and the comics themselves deserves better, but there’s still time for her to receive more positive treatment given the most recent development regarding Kamala in the newest comics.

Marvel Studios and producer Kevin Fiege had better pray that people are only sick certain kinds of Marvel works, and that the MCU lore has simply become too deep for the mainstream to follow. Signs suggest that they’re aware of the problem with the launch of the Marvel Spotlight series, shows (and perhaps movies) that won’t require prior knowledge from other Marvel content, starting with Echo in January. Otherwise, there will be a lot of pain, which hopefully doesn’t lead to them getting too desperate.

If companies take the wrong lessons and make the dumbest decisions afterward, far too likely to happen given historical precedence, a heavy weight will be placed on the shoulders of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Madame Web sure doesn’t look like it will turn anything around.