Box office numbers are coming in for The Marvels’ Thursday night premiere and they are far worse than any recent Marvel Cinematic Universe entry.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Deadline reports the movie only grossed $6.6 million on Thursday night. For comparison, The-Numbers notes that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was a box office loser, grossed $17.5 million in its Thursday night premiere.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which came out in May of this year also had a $17.5 million Thursday premiere. That means The Marvels made nearly 3 times less than both Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
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Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
If you look even farther back, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had a Thursday night premiere of $28 million. Thor: Love and Thunder had a $29 million Thursday premiere. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had a Thursday premiere of $36 million.
The Marvels even performed worse than Eternals, which had a $9.5 million first Thursday night and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which had an $8.8 million Thursday.
One has to go all the way back to 2015 to find a worse Thursday night premiere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that is worse than The Marvels.
Ant-Man had a Thursday premiere of $6.4 million. However, that’s not factoring in inflation. If you factor in inflation, Ant-Man’s Thursday opening comes to $8.3 million.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
The film’s poor Thursday box office appears to be reflective of declining box office projections for the film. Back on October 12th, Box Office Pro projected the film would only gross between $50 million and $75 million in its opening weekend.
The outlet then detailed that it would only gross between $121 million and $189 million in its entire domestic run at the box office.
Two weeks later and Box Office Pro lowered its projections for the film’s opening weekend to between $45 million and $67 million.
They also lowered their entire domestic projection to between $109 million and $169 million.
Most recently, the outlet lowered its opening weekend projections for the film to between $35 million and $49 million.
Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
Financial analyst Valliant Renegade reacted to the film’s poor Thursday night previews predicting “the overall box office run will likely signal the death of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it.
Later in his analysis, Valliant Renegade noted that the film’s poor box office means the return on investment will abysmal due to the film’s enormous budget.
He noted, “What they’ve actually spent on The Marvels as best we can calculate is probably going to approach if not exceed $300 million.”
Forbes’ Caroline Reid previously reported the film’s budget as of September 2022 clocked in at $274.8 million. However, she also notes they received a $55 million tax credit from the government of the United Kingdom bringing the film’s net spending to $219.8 million.
But as Valliant Renegade notes The Marvels was pushed back from its previously scheduled release date in July to this November due to it testing poorly with test audiences. In order to fix the problem, Disney delayed the film in order to do reshoots. These reshoots will clearly jack up the budget of the film meaning the film’s break even point is much higher.
Valliant Renegade predicts the film will need “to make probably somewhere around $8 to $900 million at the box office just to break even.”
Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
What do you make of the Thursday night preview box office grosses for The Marvels?
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