The Brie Larson led The Marvels bombed in its opening weekend at the box office posting the worst opening weekend in Marvel Cinematic Universe history without even having to factor in inflation.
According to The-Numbers, the film only grossed $47 million in its domestic opening weekend. The film grossed $6.6 million on Thursday night, $21.5 million on Friday, $15.3 million on Saturday, and $10.2 million on Sunday.
The Marvels brought in $63.3 million internationally for a global total of $110.3 million.
The top five international markets are currently China ($11.7M), United Kingdom ($4.3M), Indonesia ($3.7M), South Korea ($3.5M), and France ($3.1M).
As noted above the $47 million domestic opening weekend is the worst in Marvel Cinematic Universe history without even factoring in inflation.
The previous holder of that title was The Incredible Hulk. The film grossed $55.4 million back in 2008.
2015’s Ant-Man had the worst box office gross if you factor in inflation. The film grossed $57.2 million back in 2015. Factoring in inflation that comes out to $74.3 million in 2023 dollars.
The film did meet box office projections from Box Office Pro, who predicted the film would gross between $35 million and $49 million. However, those projections were significantly reduced in the month leading up to the film’s release.
The outlet originally projected the film would gross between $50 million and $75 million in its opening weekend and go on to earn between $121 million and $189 million in its entire domestic run.
As for who was going to see The Marvels, Box Office Pro reports that the audience was 61% male.
They also note that 67% of moviegoers were over the age of 25. Finally, they note that 45% of ticket sales were in premium formats.
In comparison Captain Marvel’s box office saw 55% of moviegoers being male and 63% being older than 25. Premium formats only made up 34% of ticket sales.
As for audience reaction, the movie received an abysmal B from CinemaScore.
For comparison Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania also received a B as did Eternals. Both Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness received a B+. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 had an A CinemaScore.
The grade is a B for #TheMarvels Let us know your thoughts in the comments! #CinemaScore pic.twitter.com/7ogU8DFiVe
— CinemaScore (@CinemaScore) November 11, 2023
Box office analyst OMB Reviews reacted to the poor box office performance declaring, “Goes to show you if you make a bunch of films within a short amount of time and you don’t actually give fans what they want because instead you’re deciding to push various aspects of identity politics and other nonsense in it, guess what, people are going to stop going to your movies.”
OMB Reviews would also respond to arguments that the box office was so bad because the film lacked promotion from its main actors such as Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani.
He stated, “Well, the fact that they had even just a few days to promote this movie and the film still came in at the bottom end of their estimates tells me that that promotion doesn’t do anything. That promotion, that going on late night shows, that does not really move the needle anymore. There’s just no evidence to really suggest that.”
“The key to kind of understanding this is actually going to be looking ahead towards a film like The Hunger Games prequel coming out soon because that film will have had at least a couple of weeks worth or at least a full week worth of promotional materials,” he added.
What do you make of The Marvels’ abysmal performance at the box office?