According to Deadline, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is headed for a $190 million dollar opening domestic weekend. That’s a fine start, though analysts are honest that Mother’s Day is difficult to predict. Disney itself is thinking this might be closer to $180 million. Even if it breaks the $200 million mark for the start, there’s big time trouble ahead.
Industry estimates see Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnesscoming in with an estimated $58.75M Saturday, which is 35% off from the pic’s opening day of $90M. Many believe that the sequel’s opening is between $190M-$194M. That’s a great kickoff to summer and the best opening for a Disney movie during the pandemic. With that range, Doctor Strange 2will land between the 9th to 11th biggest domestic opening of all-time.
The problem is that though Doctor Strange has its supporters, the hard truth is the movie has a very low CinemaScore for a Marvel movie. That likely means it’s not as well as received by audiences as Rotten Tomatoes might try to relay. In fact, the only Marvel movie to ever have a lower CinemaScore is the original Thor movie. What’s very interesting is that outside of the Rotten Tomatoes audiences score, which strongly appears to either be a fluke or manipulated, the Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score as well as both MetaCritic scores for Thor line up almost perfectly with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
If we look at how Thor performed at the box office as a comparison, Thor hit the bottom-third of its projected possible futures after the first weekend. If Doctor Strange does the same, we’re looking at a 2.48 multiplier for the rest of its run. That would see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness finish with only about $475 million. That’s probably enough to get Marvel’s latest film over the billion mark in global revenues, but it could be close given that China is out of picture. If we assume that it performs more like Age of Ultron, it actually could be worse.
But a reminder: we’re talking about the future. Nobody knows truly what is going to happen. What we do know is there are some parallels with this film that give us an idea of where it’s heading. What is more interesting to me is how it will affect future Marvel films. Does a very low CinemaScore harm the audience’s excitement for Thor Love and Thunder? That’s a big-time question for everyone at Disney and Marvel.
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