Good news and bad news for The Marvels from this weekends box office results! The good news is that the movie won the weekend with the highest grossing box office results for movies currently playing in theaters. The bad news is that the new action packed super hero movie opened with the lowest opening of any Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie.
The Marvels
The Marvels opened with $47 million in box office receipts which put it at the top for the weekend results. However, these opening results are far less than any other MCU movie in history. The other two MCU movies at the bottom of the list for weak opening weekends are Ant-Man from 2015 which opened with $57.2 million and The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton which opened with $55.4 million in 2008 (this film was before Disney acquired the Marvel franchise).
The Marvels stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeauis. And in my opinion, it is actually a great film plus it is trending at 62% positive on Rotten Tomatoes so apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. But why was the films opening weekend so bad? Some people say that super hero movies are dead. Some people say that movie theaters are a thing of the past. Unfortunately since COVID-19 shut everything down in 2020 and a lot of people were afraid to go to movie theaters after theaters started to reopen, the movie theater business has not completely recovered. Yes, there have been a few stand-out hit movies that have had super great opening weekends since March 2020 but very, very few.
Plus with so many streaming options and movies moving to streaming so quickly after the films open in theaters, a lot of people, including myself, decide to wait until a film is available for streaming before watching it. It is not that I don’t want to go to the movies anymore. I just don’t have a lot of free time and it is more convenient for me to wait and stream the movie at home instead of going to a movie theater. There are a few exceptions that I make like going to the theater to see The Marvels and the upcoming Disney Animated Film Wish, but those are the only two films I plan to (or have seen) in theaters for the remainder of 2023.
Disney-Pixar Elemental
But let’s not count The Marvels out yet? Disney-Pixar’s Elemental had a slow opening of only $29.5 million during Memorial Day weekend in May earlier this year. The film finished in second place for it’s opening weekend making it the second lowest three-day opening weekend for a Disney-Pixar film. But the film became a silent hit and really took off over time. To date, Disney-Pixar’s Elemental has grossed over $495 million worldwide.
Disney’s Encanto
Even the popular Disney Animation’s Encanto had a really slow opening weekend over Thanksgiving in 2021. The film also had a slow second week but slowly gained popularity several weeks after the film opened in theaters. Plus the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” really helped fuel the films popularity. To date, Encanto has grossed over $256 million in box office receipts.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel had a worldwide opening of $456.7 million in 2019 making it the sixth-biggest of all time. Plus the film has grossed over $1.1 billion since it’s opening weekend. So by looking at those results, we can assume that the character is popular. And just because the film had a slow opening this past weekend, I am not counting it as a flop just yet. Let’s see how the film does over the next few weeks including Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas. I think the film may be a hit over time, but sometimes you just have to wait it out.
Here’s the Final Trailer from The Marvels which is now in theaters.
Have you seen The Marvels? Do you still go to movie theaters?
Send me a message! I would love to hear what you think.
